During the Cabinet meeting, President Trump also said the U.S. would accept up to 600,000 Chinese students — an announcement that quickly drew backlash from his MAGA base, including from Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer. Trump said he liked having Chinese students in the U.S.

President Donald Trump: “But I like that their students come here. I like that other countries’ students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn’t? Our college system would go to hell very quickly. You’d have — and it wouldn’t be the top colleges. It would be colleges that struggle, on the bottom. And you take out 300,000 or 600,000 students out of the system.”

The president’s comments are a shift from his administration’s policy. Back in May, the State Department announced that it was vetting Chinese students for connections to the Chinese Communist Party.