Like some comments pointed out, targeting on talent will be ineffective, if not backfiring. And just like most typical dumb policies, it's targeting on symptoms

Like some comments pointed out, targeting on talent will be ineffective, if not backfiring. And just like most typical dumb policies, it's targeting on symptoms (students not integrating or researchers leaving) not real causes and issues in this country: race, economic and fake news. The racial problems and slow economic in US is making international students less motivated to stay in US, and particularly when it comes to Chinese students, they have an easy fallback option. The propaganda and fake news is making it worse. While on one side nationalism propaganda is flowing in from the China (particularly on WeChat and Zhihu), on the other side fake news targeting on Chinese students and broadly minorities/foreigners are pushing them further away. In the past, US administrations have made some really smart decisions like helped establish one of best universities in China[1], and generously welcomed the Chinese student from Tiananmen Protest in 1989[2]. This administration is fond of self-claimed wars, targeting students and researchers is a war easy to win, even much easier than the trade war, but we all know history which tells us where it leads to. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University#Early_20th_century_(1911–1949) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsinghua_University#Early_20th... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Student_Protection_Act_of_1992 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Student_Protection_Act...