President Donald Trump on Thursday defended Chinese nationals purchasing U.S. farmland.
When asked about Chinese nationals buying farmland in the U.S., Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity during a Thursday evening interview: “look, it’s not that I love it—you want to see farm prices drop, you want to see farmers lose a lot of money? Just take that out of the market.”
Trump also suggested during the interview that “good” students from China and other foreign countries that “want to stay in America” could potentially be given green cards. The president also claimed that it is “a very insulting thing to tell a country ‘we don’t want your people in our schools.’”
“But if you want to see a university system die, take a half-a-million people out of it,” Trump said. “And you know the ones that won’t be hurt are the top schools, the top schools will be fine, but your lower schools, the ones that don’t do quite as well, they’ll be dying all over the place.”
“I frankly think it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here, I think it’s good,” he continued. “Not everybody agrees with me, and it doesn’t sound like a very conservative position and I’m a conservative guy; I’m really a common sense guy more than a conservative guy.”
The White House did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
It remains unclear how Trump’s comments defending Chinese nationals purchasing American farmland square with his administration’s previous efforts to restrict China from investing in the nation. In February 2025, Trump issued a national security memorandum aiming to limit Chinese investments in several major U.S. sectors, including agriculture.
The U.S. “will protect our farmland and real estate near sensitive facilities,” and also “strengthen” the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.’s “authority over ‘greenfield’ investments, and restrict foreign adversary access to U.S. talent and operations in sensitive technologies,” according to the presidential memorandum.
Additionally, the Trump administration unveiled a “National Farm Security Action Plan” in July 2025 in an effort to address “urgent threats from foreign adversaries and strengthening the resilience of our nation’s food and agricultural systems.”
Korean-American commentator Kangmin Lee wrote Thursday in an X post that “those 500,000 spots should go to American students first.”
“Trump is right—lower-tier colleges would struggle or close if we stopped letting half a million foreigners in through the university back door,” he added. “But that’s not a reason to keep the current system, it’s proof the system is broken. If an American university can’t survive without heavy foreign tuition money, it shouldn’t exist in the first place.”
“Trump says it’s insulting to tell China their students can’t go to our universities, imagine being an American student and receiving a rejection letter while 500,000 Chinese students get in!” Former Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said in a Thursday X post. “And NO it is not ok for China to buy our farmland!!! And no that’s not common sense!!!”
In August 2025, Trump said he would let 600,000 students from China study in the U.S. He also told the Daily Caller during an August 2025 interview that permitting Chinese students to study in America is “the right thing to do” because fostering positive relations with other countries is a good thing.
Chinese nationals’ ownership of farmland in the U.S. has increased substantially over the past decade, raising concerns among some Republicans about China’s growing influence on the nation.
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