Trump touts 600k Chinese students. White House says no visa increase.

President Donald Trump on Monday said the United States would allow 600,000 Chinese students to study at American universities, a statement that touched off immediate confusion and sharp pushback from his conservative base and prompted a White House clarification that no new increase in visas was being proposed. The remarks, made during meetings at the White House and tied by the president to ongoing trade negotiations with Beijing, came amid simultaneous policy moves aimed at tighter scrutiny of foreign students from China.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that admitting Chinese students was "very important, 600,000 students," and argued that without them "our college system would go to hell very quickly." A White House official later told Fox News that the figure referenced two years worth of visas and reflects the roughly 300,000 Chinese students already enrolled in U.S. universities, and that the administration is not proposing an expansion of student visas for Chinese nationals.

The comments arrived against a backdrop of earlier announcements this year in which the State Department said it would more aggressively revoke visas for some Chinese students and the...