Will Trump's "America First" Policy cost us students?

Here is a fascinating new article by a freelance acquaintance of mine, Francesco Sisci, who works out of Asia.  Francesco points out the risks we run vis a vis China with Trump's decision to push an "America First" agenda.  I suggested earlier in this blog that his relationship with Putin will be a quid pro quo: Putin helps the US squeeze China while Trump gives the Russians a free hand in the former Soviet states of eastern Europe.  A good piece in the January 23rd TIME magazine says much the same.

A question closer to home is whether Trump's attitude toward China will cost higher ed institutions Chinese students.  Even my small college counts on getting its share of the 300,000 such students coming to America every school year.

The Wall Street Journal explains, "They’re eager to escape flawed education systems back home, where low standards are leaving many ill-prepared for a global economy.
This is especially true in China, by far the biggest source of foreign students in America. Many Chinese youths see their own universities as diploma mills, churning out graduates whose earnings potential is often bleak. Government statistics show the average monthly salary for college graduates half a year after leaving school was 3,487 yuan ($539), slightly less than what a migrant worker in the construction sector makes on average."

If it's the students and their families, and not the government, that drives this market, then it seems the Peoples Republic could, and very well might, shut off the tap at any time.  Furthermore, fifteen years ago, when my school started recruiting Chinese students out of Shanghai, we used J-1 (exchange student) visas because F-1 (longer term study visas) were impossible to obtain; the US State Department might decide to return to such a tough policy again, if relations with China head south.  Thus, the trouble could come from either side of a trade confrontation.

One thing history teaches us about trade restraints: they breed trade wars.  And in many ways, ours is a business like any other... and therefore subject to trade restrictions just like any other.