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cover of episode PDB Afternoon Bulletin | May 29th, 2025: U.S. Takes Aim At CCP Influence On Campus & A Legal Blow To Trump's Trade Plan

PDB Afternoon Bulletin | May 29th, 2025: U.S. Takes Aim At CCP Influence On Campus & A Legal Blow To Trump's Trade Plan

2025/5/29
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Mike Baker: 作为主持人,我观察到特朗普政府正在采取行动,遏制中国共产党对美国校园的影响。美国国务院开始积极吊销与中国共产党有关联或在敏感领域学习的中国国民的签证,此举被认为是出于国家安全考虑。这一政策的收紧可能会扰乱价值500亿美元的国际教育产业,并切断美国科技公司的一个关键人才招聘渠道。长期以来,美国政府对中国在美国的间谍活动和知识产权盗窃行为表示担忧,并认为中国的学术交流项目可能被用作特洛伊木马。尽管此举可能引发中美之间的紧张关系,但美国政府似乎决心优先遏制中国的影响力。 Marco Rubio: 作为国务卿,我宣布美国将采取强硬措施,撤销与中国共产党有关联的中国学生的签证。我们认为,一些中国学生可能参与了间谍活动、知识产权盗窃和技术转移,对美国国家安全构成了威胁。因此,我们将与国土安全部合作,积极吊销这些学生的签证,以保护美国的利益。我们并非反对所有中国学生,但我们必须警惕那些可能对我们国家构成威胁的人。

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It's Thursday, the 29th of May. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start things off with a major policy shift at the State Department.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio says the U.S. will begin aggressively revoking visas for Chinese nationals, specifically targeting students with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, or those studying in sensitive fields. Later in the show, a legal blow to President Trump's tariff agenda as a federal court steps in to block most of the tariffs. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

We begin with the Trump administration moving to curb Beijing's influence on U.S. campuses, announcing a sweeping plan to revoke student visas for Chinese nationals linked to the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, or involved in sensitive research fields.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the crackdown on Wednesday, framing it as a national security measure. The move could disrupt the $50 billion international education industry and sever a key recruitment channel for U.S. tech firms, many of which have relied on Chinese nationals in research and engineering,

despite growing concerns over intellectual property theft and espionage. Well, to be fair, the intellectual property theft and espionage by the Chinese regime has been going on for several decades, so you could argue the U.S. government is a little late to the party.

The State Department, Rubio said, will coordinate with the Department of Homeland Security to "aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students." And if there was any doubt about just how aggressive the move will be, Reuters reported on Tuesday that the State Department had already halted new appointments for student and exchange visitor visas, citing an internal memo. The directive marks a dramatic escalation in President Trump's broader effort to confront Chinese influence in American institutions.

For years, lawmakers and intelligence officials have warned that China's academic exchange programs are essentially Trojan horses, vehicles for espionage, intellectual property theft, and illicit tech transfers. Now, Washington appears to be answering that alarm with focus.

Many of the targeted students are believed to be tied to Chinese state-backed initiatives aimed at infiltrating American research labs and siphoning off proprietary technology, raising red flags not just in universities but across the defense and tech sectors.

Notably, the administration has already moved to revoke Harvard University's ability to enroll foreign students, many of them Chinese, citing alleged ties to the CCP, though that decision is currently under judicial review after being temporarily blocked by a federal judge. Meanwhile, the administration has stepped up its broader immigration enforcement measures, intensifying social media screenings for visa applicants

and accelerating deportation efforts under Trump's immigration mandate. Beijing, as you might suspect, isn't taking this move lightly. China's foreign ministry vowed to "firmly safeguard" the rights of its students abroad. But the blowback isn't just coming from overseas. One Chinese-born human rights researcher, now based in the U.S., acknowledged Beijing has exploited American academic openness in the past

but warned that this new policy could be self-defeating. She stated, "This risks undermining America's long-standing position as the global leader in scientific innovation." Looking at the numbers, Chinese student enrollment in the U.S. fell to 277,000 last year, down from nearly 370,000 in 2019.

Between tightened visa policies, strained diplomacy, and COVID-era hangover, more students are looking to Europe or heading back to China post-graduation rather than sticking around. I'd like to point out that this is not the first time that Trump's team has sought to roll back Beijing's soft power incursions into American higher education. During his first term, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spearheaded efforts to shut down what are known as Confucius Institutes,

which are CCP-funded cultural centers on American campuses, accusing them of peddling, quote, global propaganda and malign influence. Now, with tensions again escalating between the world's two largest economies, the latest directive signals that there's no appetite for soft peddling. The trade war may have cooled, possibly, but Trump's second term, well, continues to prioritize curbing Chinese influence.

Alright, coming up next, a U.S. federal court blocks Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs, saying that he exceeded his authority. I'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. We've got a major development in the ongoing tariff wars. A federal court in New York just handed President Trump a significant legal defeat, blocking much of his aggressive new tariff policy aimed at nearly every U.S. trading partner.

The three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled that the president overstepped his legal authority when he invoked a 1977 law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEPA, of course it's got an acronym, to justify these sweeping tariffs. Trump had declared the U.S. trade deficit a national emergency and used that declaration to impose a 10% baseline tariff on nearly all imports last month,

plus so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the U.S. runs a trade deficit. While he later suspended those reciprocal tariffs for 90 days, the baseline tariffs stayed in place. And before that, in February, Trump had used the same emergency powers to slap tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, arguing that illegal immigration and drug smuggling constituted a national emergency that warranted economic retaliation.

Now, well, the court says those actions went too far. In its ruling, the court said the administration's use of AIPA didn't hold up. For one, they declared that America's trade deficits don't qualify as a sudden emergency since the U.S. has run trade deficits for nearly 50 straight years. The court also noted that the tariffs did little to actually address the problems that they were supposedly meant to fix.

The decision stems from a combined lawsuit by five small businesses and 12 U.S. states, just two of at least seven legal challenges currently pending. The ruling leaves in place some other Trump tariffs, like those on foreign steel, aluminum, and autos, but only because those were imposed under different laws requiring Commerce Department investigations, not presidential discretion.

As for what happens next, well, the case will almost certainly be appealed and could ultimately land in the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the ruling creates uncertainty, trading partners may hold off on concessions, and companies may shift supply chains while the legal battle plays out. Bottom line, the courts are pushing back, and Trump's trade war just got more complicated.

And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon Bulletin for Thursday, 29th of May. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. Finally, if you're thinking to yourself, you know, I sure love the PDB, but I wonder if I could listen to the show ad-free. Well, you're in luck.

To listen to the show ad-free, it's simple. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker, and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.