Donald Trump’s latest comments about allowing hundreds of thousands of Chinese international students into the United States have drawn criticism from some of the most outspoken members of the Republican Party.
Ahead of his meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae-myung at the White House on Monday, Trump told reporters that he plans to allow 600,000 Chinese students into the country — a figure more than double the number in the United States now.
It’s a sharp departure from an announcement Secretary of State Marco Rubio made in May, when he promised the United States would “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese students and add more scrutiny to all future visa applications from China.
I mean, we won’t educate the Chinese exchange students either. The US education system is increasingly diploma mills and sinecures for friends of public officials.
Trump’s doing the “$5M Visa” gambit. He thinks he can announce “We’re going to invite so many students! The best students!” and then slide in a mechanism for channeling kickback into his pocket. But no sane student is going to take him up on this deal. And no quality school is going to want students coming through such a program.
TIL that sinecure is a Latin word. In Russian it sounds a lot like “a place where you smoke something blue, or emitting blue smoke, or making you blue”.
On the subject - the US still designs some of the most advanced things on this planet, so some people do get educated.
We’re rapidly tearing all the wiring out of the walls. Just look at the dismantling of the CDC, the FAA, and NOAA. Mass arrest and deportation of some of the smartest and most talented people in their fields, because they aren’t native born (or merely white enough to pass the paper bag test). Feds moving to block the trade of high end electronics or the construction of modern power systems and modes of transport. The sheer volume of financial scams coming on the heels of an enormous tech bubble, combined with mass layoffs across software, automotive, and agriculture sectors.
It’s bleak, man. Real “you’re a Russian landing your first job in 1989 Moscow” bleak.