White House clarified Trump's comments on 600,000 Chinese students: 'Isn’t proposing an increase in student visas'

The White House clarified the controversy over visas for the 600,000 Chinese students. After Donald Trump said he planned to issue the visas, an initiative he defined as "very important" for both diplomacy and universities.

The president's proposal has been criticized by figures in the MAGA universe, such as Steve Bannon, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Liz Wheeler and Laura Loomer. Among other things, they said they could be spies and that it would be better to fill the universities with local students.

"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. And it wouldn't be the top colleges, so it'd be colleges that struggle on the bottom. And you take out 300,000 or 600,000 students out of the system," the president said last Tuesday during a cabinet meeting.

"Nobody, I repeat nobody, wants 600,000 more Chinese 'students' aka Communist spies in the United States. China murdered 1.2 million Americans. Now they get to replace us? This cannot happen," activist Laura Loomer wrote.

Just two days later, the government clarified that this is not a new program, but rather that the students would arrive over a two-year period under an existing program.

"President Trump isn’t proposing an increase in student visas for Chinese students. The 600k number refers to two years’ worth of visas. It’s simply a continuation of existing policy," a White House spokesman told Fox News.