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Discussions about trade imbalances focus almost exclusively on Chinese goods. What’s missing is a consideration of America’s service surplus with China, which comes partly from the billions Chinese families spend on American education. According to the Institute of International Education, 1.1 million international students generated $43.8 billion and supported 378,175 jobs during the 2023-24 academic year. Of these, about a quarter came from China, which spent over $14.3 billion in educational expenditures in 2023. And these figures do not include their long-term contribution to American society, especially its global leadership in science and technology: Chinese students account for 36 percent of Ph.D. graduates in STEM subjects in the United States, and a majority of them choose to remain after graduation.
The trade war threatens American higher education as an industry. While Chinese students still constitute the largest group of international students in the United States, their numbers have dropped from a high of 370,000 in 2019 to about 278,000 today. This decline reflects the slowdown in China’s post-pandemic economy, but much of it stems from increased bilateral tensions. Following the China Initiative in 2018 that targeted scientists and researchers of Chinese descent, the Trump administration placed Chinese students, particularly those in STEM fields, under increased visa restrictions through a 2020 executive order. Now, as relations between the two countries deteriorate, Chinese students have become human leverage in the conflict: On March 25, Republican lawmakers introduced a blunt and far-reaching bill, the Stop CCP VISAs Act, that would effectively block Chinese citizens from getting student visas. “Great idea,” replied Donald Trump Jr. on X.
In retaliation for American tariffs, Beijing has already advised its citizens to reconsider study plans in America. But official warnings aren’t necessary — it’s already happening. At Dartmouth College, where I teach Chinese history, Xiaotian Liu, a Ph.D. candidate from China with no criminal record or history of campus activism, saw his visa terminated without prior notice on April 4. While Liu has won a temporary injunction, his experience represents a broader assault against international students and scholars, one that has drawn considerable outrage on Chinese social media and will inevitably diminish the willingness of Chinese (and other international) students to come to the United States. This decline in international enrollment will not only reduce tuition revenue for colleges already facing federal budget cuts, but more critically, will also hurt America’s national interests by severing a vital pipeline of international scholars and researchers essential for America to effectively compete with China in science and innovation.
As relations between the United States and China deteriorate, Chinese students have become human leverage in the conflict.
A reverse brain drain is already underway: Since the China Initiative in 2018, departures of Chinese academics have increased as they reported general anxiety and difficulties pursuing their research in America, according to a 2023 survey. The reverse trend is equally worrying: Before the pandemic, approximately 10,000 American students were studying in China, compared to only 469 in the 2022-2023 academic year. This lack of engagement is even crippling China experts in America, many of whom have been deprived of professional contact due to China’s tightening ideological sphere and stringent zero-Covid policy. Now, however, the major resistance comes from their American counterparts. Intellectual exchanges with China have become politically toxic amid constant threats of federal investigations.
A reverse brain drain is already underway: Departures of Chinese academics have increased as they report anxiety about pursuing their research in America.
Vance’s anti-intellectual comment reflects the administration’s attack on elite institutions, but it also reveals the broader decline of America’s intellectual infrastructure for global understanding. During the Cold War, public-private collaboration led to the creation of centers for China studies, such as the Fairbank Center at Harvard. Today, the administration is slashing funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, independent think tanks such as the Wilson Center, and feuding with universities with threats to their tax-exempt status, international admissions, and overall academic independence. If the administration would invest in more China expertise, it might realize the idea of engineering a “reverse Kissinger” — a rapprochement with Russia similar to how Henry Kissinger exploited the Sino-Soviet split — is fanciful at best.
“Perhaps the greatest illusion was the idea that we cared more for what was going on than they did, that we would pay a higher price, that they would feel the threshold of pain before we did,” wrote David Halberstam about America’s road to the Vietnam War. But his words have echoes today. That tariffs alone could bring back manufacturing and reduce trade deficits was an obvious falsehood, but the Trump administration, in its desire to avoid difficult decisions, might soon find itself in an embarrassing retreat or doubling down on nationalism. At the same time, Xi Jinping is steeling the Chinese people for hardships, while the best and brightest of China — including those who studied in the United States and saw it as a model — bemoan its decline and struggle to defend their visions of a more open country.
Trump’s tariffs are a tax on consumers. But they are also a tax on America’s intellectual and cultural capital, one that will deprive the country of the critical knowledge and experience needed to manage its relationship with China and the world.
