NEED TO KNOW

• Trump told Hannity "good" Chinese students could get green cards to stay in U.S.
• Remarks came during state visit to Beijing alongside Xi Jinping.
• Pairs with Trump's same-interview reversal on Chinese farmland purchases.

BEIJING (TDR) — President Donald Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity during his state visit to China that "good" Chinese students who want to remain in the United States could be offered green cards, arguing that restricting international enrollment could bankrupt American universities.

The big picture: The remarks mark a sharp pivot from earlier 2026 administration policy and the second China-related campaign promise Trump has walked back in a single Hannity interview.

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• Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in May 2025 the U.S. would aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students with CCP ties
• The State Department has revoked more than 80,000 nonimmigrant visas, including roughly 8,000 student visas, since Trump took office
• Trump also walked back his pledge to ban Chinese nationals from buying U.S. farmland in the same interview

Why it matters: The president is rewriting two campaign commitments from Beijing without congressional input, while his administration's enforcement infrastructure continues to operate.

• About 266,000 Chinese students studied in U.S. universities last year
• Foreign student enrollment fell 20% this spring compared to last year amid administration crackdowns
• Trump conceded the proposal "doesn't sound like a very conservative position"

Driving the news: The Hannity sit-down also produced Trump's stark reversal on Chinese farmland purchases, a major 2024 campaign pledge.

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• Trump in September 2024: "We don't want you buying our land, we don't want you taking the land"
• This week he told Hannity pulling Chinese investment would "force down land prices" and hurt farmers
• Farm-dependent counties backed Trump 78% in 2024, his strongest demographic

What they're saying:

• Donald Trump, President — "If they are good and they want to stay in America, we won't give them a green card and things like that."
• Donald Trump, President — "If you want to see a university system die, take a half-a-million people out of it."
• Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. (R-GA), August 2025 — "We should not let in 600,000 CHINESE students to attend American colleges and universities that may be loyal to the CCP."

Yes, but: Foreign-born professionals make up 19% of U.S. STEM workers and 43% of PhD-level scientists, and international students contributed over $50 billion to the U.S. economy in 2023.

• Chinese-immigrant founders helped build Zoom, YouTube, and NVIDIA
• Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has defended the policy on economic grounds
• Critics warn CCP law requires Chinese nationals abroad to cooperate with state intelligence

Between the lines: The pattern emerging from Beijing is two simultaneous tracks running in opposite directions. Rubio's State Department is still revoking Chinese student visas under the "critical fields" framework. Trump is now offering those students green cards. Both policies cannot govern at the same time. Which track wins will be decided not by congressional debate or formal rulemaking but by whichever cabinet official Trump backs on a given day. For a base that voted on a specific China policy in 2024 and reaffirmed it in 2025 backlash, the lesson is that campaign commitments are negotiable when Trump is sitting next to Xi.

What's next:

• White House has not released formal policy language to match Trump's remarks
• House Republicans including Greene and Loomer can be expected to press the contradiction
• State Department visa revocations continue at the operational level

If campaign pledges can be reversed from a foreign capital without congressional consultation, who actually decides what "America First" means when the president is sitting across from Xi Jinping?

Sources

This report was compiled using reporting from Newsweek, The Daily Beast, NPR, Time, Fox News, The Hill, AP via Yahoo, AAPI Data, Shorelight, and Boundless Immigration.

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