In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity conducted from Beijing during his visit for talks with Xi Jinping, and broadcast Thursday night, May 14, 2026, Trump defended Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland and the presence of roughly 500,000 Chinese students at American universities. On farmland, candidate Trump had vowed to stop Beijing from 'buying up our farmland,' telling a Pennsylvania farm event in September 2024, 'we don't want you buying our land.' On the Hannity broadcast he said: '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. But they've had a lot of land for a long time. Obama did nothing about it.'
On students, his administration moved to curtail Chinese student visas in 2025, according to Time. On Hannity he said, 'If you want to see a university system die, take a half a million people out of it,' and, 'Frankly, I think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here.' He had made a similar argument to Fox's Laura Ingraham in November 2025.
The comments collided with parts of the MAGA base. Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback: 'I respect President Trump, but if he brings 500,000 Chinese students to Florida colleges, I will raise tuition on them to $1,000,000/year.' Robby Starbuck wrote that the students 'are by law required to act as spies for China.' Marjorie Taylor Greene: 'imagine being an American student and receiving a rejection letter while 500,000 Chinese students get in!' Mike Cernovich asked, 'Has China defeated our country?' Republican lawmakers were more measured: Rep. Mike Lawler said he has had concerns about Chinese land purchases 'for years,' while Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick said 'the educational experience is enriched by cultural diversity.'
The farmland position cuts against Trump's own administration. In February 2025 he signed a national security memorandum targeting foreign-adversary investment in sectors including agriculture, and in July 2025 the USDA announced a National Farm Security Action Plan aimed at restricting land purchases by Chinese nationals. Ahead of the trip, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chair of the House Select Committee on China, introduced a bipartisan bill to restrict Chinese purchases of land near sensitive military sites, saying 'food security is national security.' Texas and Florida have passed laws restricting land purchases by Chinese nationals. The holdings at issue are small: per USDA data cited by Time, foreign entities own about 46 million acres (3.6% of U.S. farmland) and Chinese investors nearly 248,000 acres, about 0.02% of all U.S. farmland.
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry dated the interview May 15, two days after the Beijing summit. Newsweek reported the interview was given from Beijing during the visit, and the Washington Examiner reported it aired Thursday night, May 14 (Time and The New Republic described it as Friday); the date was corrected. The entry also said Trump's first-term administration restricted Chinese land purchases near military bases and that his 2024 platform escalated them; those claims were not supported by the sources and were replaced with the documented 2025 actions. The title no longer describes the student position as a reversal of a 2024 promise, since Trump had made a similar argument in November 2025.