Trumps Decisions on Harvard and more

Wherever you are, welcome to another of my takes on China from the wonderful city of Wuhan, we're experiencing some rain today, but that doesn't matter because it's a rest day and I've time to do some research and write some articles, which, when I'm not riding, is what I love doing - we've been working with media here and there's a video of this couple of days coming from them, when it comes I'll post it.

I wanted to talk about Trump's China now and how he's not only doubling down on trade, he's accusing China of being the protagonist -he had the temerity to issue a post on his Truth Social which actually would have made me cry if it wasn't so funny.

In it, he claims to have rescued China. Two weeks ago, we were on the verge of civil disorder and because he TACOed, which means he chickened out again, "Trump Always Chickens Out" he dropped the tariffs - the simple solution in my opinion is, if, as he says in the post that China has "TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US" is to put the tariffs back on - then see how Christmas works out.

Every single day, I'm more and more reminded of the 2006 movie Idiocracy^^, where a man with a very ordinary IQ is thrust 500 years into the future in a military experiment gone wrong, wakes up and finds he's the most intelligent person on earth - of course being Hollywood, there's no rest of the world earth; to them is the borders of the United States of America - something the rest of the world is now starting to realise and exactly as Kishore Mahbubani pointed out, leaves the US as the most isolated place on earth*.

Honestly, I sincerely believe I can go to the far reaches of Mongolia and find nomads there with a better understanding of world affairs than the average educated American citizen. There are citizens of the USA who sincerely believe that Donald J Trump has been sent by Jesus to save America. I'm really not kidding, there are many of Trump's hard core supporters who really believe this^ - please tell me that a nomad in Mongolia has a better sense of the world than this - everyone I know in China now views the US as a joke - what kind of democracy is it when a president is elected who can't string together a simple sentence without including the word Chyna and drifting off topic to tell everyone how good he is!

He's also a man with absolutely no empathy - when asked about Biden's cancer, he went off on a rant about how healthy he himself is, and never mentioned a word of sympathy towards Biden, his family or his illness - not only a lack of empathy but a complete lack of social awareness too.

So, the USA has dumbed down the population so much that almost 78 million people voted for a man who might be sent by Jesus, has no social skills, is a convicted felon and seems to have an agenda that very much puts his own family interests above that of the United States, he's hosting hugely expensive dinners and has relaxed regulations for financial tools that his family has huge investments in. The kind of financial tools that the Chinese government bans because of their lack of transparency and their ability to be used by organised crime on the black market. So strange that Trump and Vance embrace such technology while China rejects it. And people who want to argue that this is a good thing, should simply look at the increase in poverty in the USA - in 2019, it was 10%, in 2023 it had increased to 11.1% and by the end of that year it was at 13%**, that's 43 million people in poverty - I've no doubt Trump can blame Biden for that, he usually does, but just remember who was president in 2019 and 2020 when this started to increase - let's see if it decreases in 2025, my bet is that it won't.

One of the biggest reasons it won't is because the drivers of innovation, the drivers of industrialisation and the drivers of reinvigorating any nation are the young people and the immigrants. Immigrants are being rounded up and herded out, while the young people in the USA are now facing increased costs for education, health and just general living expenses, they're also losing the ability to find permanent skilled work - something Trump claims he's bringing back, but none of the corporations seem to agree with him. My guess is that it's going to get worse - Harvard University has been denied the ability to enroll foreign students because they aren't following the Administration's narratives, another bite out of the apple that the US calls freedom of speech, thought and action - you're only free if you follow the narrative, if you don't, then you're going to be punished - in the case of Harvard, we'll see if Trump's instructions are valid as it's being taken to the Supreme Court. Something not widely reported outside of Harvard's own magazine^* is that Trump's decision has already been delayed, Harvard has been given time to prepare a case and in the meantime, can continue to host international students, it can't be good for the students though especially those who are of Chinese origin - All Chinese students are now going to be deeply scrutinised and subject to removal if they have links to the dreaded CCP, or CPC as it should be known - what does this mean?

I challenge any person in China to prove they have no links to the Party, it's completely integrated into society, every single person has a friend, a classmate, a colleague, a family member who is a member, remember that 1 in 12 people in the country are members. I was a teacher in schools here, in every school I met people who were members, therefore, every single Chinese person who now studies in the USA has a link to the Party, at least one of their former teachers was a member, probably their mother, father, cousin, brother or sister is one too. It's impossible to go through life in China without a link to the Party - so Trump has just put a seal onto the fate of every Chinese student, even those from HK, Taiwan and Macau. They're all going to be guilty unless they can prove innocence. Unless they can prove they are anti-China, are going to be deemed to be pro CCP.

Trump's era is going to be a very interesting time, whether he can survive politically, economically or even physically for the next three and a half years remains to be seen but what is most definite is that whatever legacy he leaves, will leave the USA in a lot worse position than it is now and will enhance China's self-reliance, global reputation as a safe, stable and investment worthy country, and economy as most of the globe are not finding that doing business with a man who makes decisions and then chickens out is not a stable way forward whereas, doing business with China is open, transparent and profitable for any well-managed company.

Whether we like it or not, the world is changing and Trump is a catalyst of change, what will come out of his time is a very different USA, one that is more likely to be led by corporations rather than government and there's one thing we all know doesn't work - that's electing the head of a corporation because he's popular. In China the head of each and every department is there because he or she has earnt the position and deserves the role. Trump is in power because some people think he represents Jesus, some think he's a successful businessman and others just believe that what he says he will do. There are however, more than 250 million American citizens who did not vote for him, so there might be some hope for the country yet!

^^ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/

* https://mahbubani.net/containment-of-china-will-only-lead-to-us-being-isolated-in-the-world-kishore-mahbubani/

^ https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-24/trumps-most-hard-core-supporters-really-think-he-was-sent-by-god

** https://www.pgpf.org/article/7-key-trends-in-poverty-in-the-united-states/

^* https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2025/05/harvard-trump-judge-blocks-international-student-ban