Trump Defends Chinese Farm Ownership, Repeats Support for 500,000 Students — Newsweek
newsweek Donald Trump defended Chinese farm ownership in the United States on Thursday and repeated that Chinese students should be allowed to study in the country while speaking with Sean Hannity during his trip to China. The comments put him at odds with the language he used in 2024, when he campaigned on stopping China from buying American farmland.
Trump’s remarks also cut against moves by Republican-led states that have restricted some land sales to Chinese investors, including farmland, and against the Agriculture Department’s announcement last year that it would crack down on Chinese farm ownership in the United States.
Trump and Sean Hannity
Trump made the comments in an interview with Hannity while in China. On the student question, Trump said, "I could tell them I don’t want any students but..." before repeating his view that Chinese students should be allowed to study in the United States.
That position sits alongside the Trump administration’s move to strip visas from Chinese students, a separate step taken while Vice President JD Vance condemned foreign students studying at American universities. The two lines of action leave Trump defending Chinese students in one setting while his administration has moved against them in another.
Texas and Florida Laws
Republicans, including Trump, had previously framed Chinese land ownership in the United States as an existential crisis. Texas and Florida passed laws banning the sale of some lands, particularly farmland, to Chinese investors.
Those restrictions made farmland a live issue inside Republican politics before Thursday’s interview. Trump’s new comments push in the opposite direction from the position he used on the campaign trail in 2024, when he vowed to prevent China from buying up American farmland.
Agriculture Department Last Year
Last year, the Agriculture Department announced it would crack down on Chinese farm ownership in the United States. Trump’s defense of Chinese farm ownership now places him closer to the business and academic openness he described to Hannity than to the restrictions pushed by state lawmakers and federal agencies.
For farmers, land buyers, and Chinese students, the practical effect is political rather than immediate policy change: Trump has restated a position that undercuts a line his own coalition has used to justify tighter limits, and he did so publicly while abroad. The next pressure point is the clash inside his own circle, where the student issue and the land issue now point in different directions.
