US opens door for 600K Chinese students months after plans to revoke visas

US President Donald Trump on Monday (local time) announced that Washington is opening the door for 600,000 Chinese students to study at American universities as the two nations continue their trade talks, Fox News reported.

 

The decision signals a potential thaw between Beijing and Washington after escalating tariffs and restrictions on Chinese students. Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said, "I hear so many stories that we're not going to allow their students", adding, "We're going to allow their students to come in. It's very important, 600,000 students. It's very important. But we're going to get along with China."

 

Changing his stance on China, Trump called it a 'very important relationship', signaling a shift away from his administration's aggressive policies that vowed to revoke visas for Chinese students. "As you know, we're, we're taking a lot of money in from China because of the tariffs and the different things. It's a very important relationship. It's a much better relationship economically than it was before with Biden. But he allowed that. They just took him to the cleaners," he said.

 

US-China trade talks

 

Earlier this year, the US imposed a 145 per cent tariff on China, which prompted Beijing to retaliate with a 125 per cent tariff on US goods.

 

Negotiations in Geneva in May resulted in dramatically bringing down the additional tariffs. However, Trump continued to warn Beijing of further penalties.

 

Last week, Trump also floated a 200 per cent tariff on Chinese-made magnets, citing Beijing's "monopoly" over the global market. He said, "China, intelligently, went and they sort of took a monopoly on the world’s magnets. It’ll probably take us a year to have them."

 

Earlier in May, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the Trump administration's plan to revoke visas for Chinese students who either had ties with the Chinese Communist Party or were enrolled in "critical fields", adding that the US State Department was "revising" visa criteria to "enhance scrutiny" of all future applicants from China and Hong Kong.

 

Slamming the move then, China called it "politically motivated”, adding that Washington's decision to revoke the visas exposes its hypocrisy behind its claim of freedom and openness.