President Donald Trump‘s administration pledged Wednesday to “aggressively” revoke the visas of Chinese students, one of the biggest sources of funding for American universities, in his most recent tirade against US higher education.
The announcement by Secretary of State Marco Rubio marked a show of defiance after China criticized his decision a day earlier to suspend visa appointments for students worldwide at least temporarily.
The Trump administration has already sought to end permission for all international students at Harvard University, which has rebuffed pressure from the president related to student protests.
The United States will “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections to the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields,” Rubio said in a statement.
“We will also revise visa criteria to enhance scrutiny of all future visa applications from the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong,” he said.
Young Chinese people have long been crucial to US universities, which rely on international students paying full tuition.
China sent 277,398 students in the 2023-24 academic year, although India for the first time in years surpassed it, according to a State Department-backed report of the Institute of International Education.
Trump in his previous term also took aim at Chinese students but focused attention on those in sensitive fields or with explicit links with the military.
It was unclear to what extent Rubio’s statement marked an escalation.
