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Justin, a Chinese PhD student at an Ivy League university, had always planned to settle in the US but the 25-year-old is abandoning the idea after a crackdown on immigrants and academia and is considering studying elsewhere.

This week, Washington told US embassies to suspend the visa approval process for foreign students pending additional screening of their social media activities.

Marco Rubio, secretary of state, then pledged to “aggressively revoke” Chinese student visas, especially those studying in “critical fields” or linked to the Communist party.

Rubio’s comments are part of measures against foreign academia and students, particularly those from China, that analysts say is eroding America’s reputation there as a safe destination for overseas study and leading many to consider backup plans in other countries.

“If the government sets such a precedent . . . allowing xenophobic sentiments to go unchecked, there will inevitably come a time when large-scale anti-Chinese incidents occur,” said Justin, who requested that only his first name be used.

He added he was considering applying to Oxford and Cambridge universities in the UK as a “Plan B”. “The US is no longer an ideal place for scientific research,” he said.

The number of Chinese students at US universities has fallen sharply since the Covid-19 pandemic, in part because of initiatives including the now-defunct “China Initiative” that targeted alleged espionage in academia during the first Trump administration.

Last year, the Chinese student intake in the US totalled more than 277,000, down 4 per cent from a year earlier and 26 per cent from nearly 373,000 in 2019-20. The total number of international students in the US hit an all-time high last year of 1.1mn.

The industry is facing structural challenges, said Julian Fisher, co-founder of Venture Education, a Beijing-based market intelligence consultancy.

Not only are mainland Chinese parents becoming more discerning, increasingly opting only for the top-ranked institutions, there is more competition from institutions in Hong Kong and Singapore. China’s demographic decline also meant that the pool of customers was set to fall, he said.

“Perhaps the bigger existential question here is if we have already passed the apex of Chinese students studying overseas,” Fisher said, adding that the Trump administration’s policies could speed up the trend.

Since the latest measures were announced, interest for “study abroad in the US” on Chinese search engine Baidu has dropped to 65 per cent of what it was a year earlier, according to analysis by Venture Education using data from Baidu Index.

Australia appears to be the most popular followed by Singapore and the UK, the analysis suggested.

Frida Cai, head of business development at Ivyray Edu, an education consultancy, said some clients were considering alternatives such as the UK, Hong Kong or Australia. Ivyray Edu advises those applying for a US visa to be cautious about what they post online.

President Donald Trump’s policies have led to a “lack of confidence among parents” in Hong Kong, said Will Kwong, managing director of AAS Education, a consultancy.

“Unless the students have family links in the US, the overall market appetite has dropped significantly,” he said. Kwong was helping students come up with “Plan Bs” that include the UK and Australia.

Interest among Hong Kong students in the US had in any case plummeted in recent months to about one-quarter of pre-pandemic levels, he said, with those interested in technology, AI, aerospace and engineering often avoiding the US.

Beijing has described the US policies as evidence of the “hypocrisy” underlying Washington’s “long-touted claims of freedom and openness”.

“It will only further damage the United States’ international image and national credibility,” the foreign ministry said of Rubio’s threat.

These comments highlight President Xi Jinping’s efforts to tout China’s authoritarian system as a viable development model for other countries as Beijing seeks to attract more overseas students from the developing world.

On Chinese social media, students have voiced their anger and confusion.

One student set to begin a masters in design at Harvard this year described how her study visa was initially approved by the US embassy in Beijing last week. The following day she received an email saying it had been refused because Harvard had lost its Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification. When a judge blocked the ban, it was later issued.

“Am I worried?” the student, who did not want to be identified, told the Financial Times. “Yes of course. There’s a new policy every other day; it’s quite unpredictable.” For those looking to study overseas next year, she said: “I’d suggest to them to have backup plans.”

Still, at the US embassy in Beijing this week, some students, whose visa interviews had been scheduled before the latest suspension, were cautiously optimistic about going to the US.

One Chinese student who identified himself only as Austin said he was returning to New York University to complete a masters programme in computer engineering. “The resources and the teachers are great at NYU,” Austin said.

He said, however, that, while in the US, he always carried his passport with him in case immigration officers stopped him on the street. Deportation or visa revocations were always a risk, he said.

“I think more of these things definitely will happen under Trump,” he said.

1. This is your first album in six years. Why was now the right time for a comeback and how has your music evolved since 2019?

I mean I would have loved for it to be sooner! Ha. It’s just how long it took. I had just started touring the second album when lockdowns began so it took a while for me to really get back into a headspace where I was able to write anything I was interested in. I think with every album I like to explore unfamiliar territory and go on an adventure. With this record I got to explore a much more live approach, recording everyone together and I think that’s probably the biggest evolution in terms of sound and feel. It feels natural and tactile to me, perhaps less laboured over, in some senses but it was still a lot of hard work.

2. Why did you choose to name your new album I Got Too Sad For My Friends?

It’s the name I gave to the SoundCloud playlist of the first collection of demos that became this album. It sort of summed up how I was feeling at the time and it also amused me and I remember thinking that would be a great name for an album if ever I finish one again.

3. This album has an ethereal earthiness to it. Why is this something you chose to express in your music?

It was something I was really drawn to in the music I was listening to when I was down. I was listening to a lot of American records from the ’60s and America was such a big character and presence on the record because I had moved to Brooklyn right before the pandemic. During lockdowns I was going on a lot of walks and observing as much of the natural world as much as I could in a city like New York, even if it was just in parks. So I think I was just drawn to exploring those textures in my own music. It also feels a little but like a return to my roots, in that I was always right songs on an acoustic guitar.

4. What’s your favourite lyric from the entire album?

I love the version of the album title on Richardson. “I got to down around my friends, it was slow but they stopped answering so I stopped talking“. I like how it encapsulates how everything fell apart slowly, it wasn’t a catastrophic moment, it just felt like whoever I was drifted away from the rest of the world and I felt very isolated,

5. Who is the song World’s Worst Girlfriend about?

Ha. When I was down my instinct was to hide away from the world, which meant even though I wanted to go on fun dates with my partner I just felt like all I could do was stay inside in my pyjamas and play video games and it made me feel like it must have sucked to be my partner. Luckily for me, they didn’t also think this.

6. The album cover artwork is strikingly expressive, as well as the visualiser for your song Recognise. What influenced it?

It was heavily influenced by playing 300 hours of Baldur’s Gate 3that one scene in Romeo and Juliet and reading The Little Prince. I loved the idea of wearing armour that isn’t protecting your vital organs in a completely empty landscape as a metaphor for the things we do to protect ourselves that probably actually don’t help very much or in fact make things worse.

7. How does one enter the gates of Shutopia? (AKA the discord server for Shura fans).

Honestly it’s become so much more than just a server for my fans. In fact maybe the fact that I’m there is the least interesting thing about it. It’s a beautiful community of predominantly queer folks and real life friendships have been made all of the world. After my albums it’s maybe the thing I’m proudest of being a part of. Anyone is welcome in the realm and you can join here.

8. What kind of music did you listen to growing that shaped your taste now?

A lot of Madonna. Particularly the immaculate collection. Specifically on VHS so with all the music videos. Both my twin and I worshipped her. I think her commitment to exploring new territories musically definitely inspired my own approach. But my taste is very broad. I love all kinds of genres. It’s very situational for me. I love pop music in the gym for instance, because it’s very good at making you feel good. I love that about great pop music.

9. As a self described “muscle mommy”, what’s your favourite way to bulk up?

Aspiring muscle mommy because putting on muscle is HARD. I thought it would take six months but I think it will take six years. Right now I’m really enjoying Brazilian jiu jitsu, which I started in January. It’s been fun to take all the strength training I’ve been doing and actually doing something functional.

10. What’s next for you?

Taking this album on the road I hope. But maybe a tiny little holiday in France after the album is out I can eat lots of cheese and kayak down a river as a treat.

From top: photography by Sophie Williams; photography by Charlotte Croft.

@shura

How are businesses supposed to plan for the future if they have no idea what the rules of the game are going to be?  Businesses thrive in a predictable environment, but we have entered a period of time of extreme uncertainty.  One day we are facing high tariffs, the next day one court strikes them all down, and then the next day another court temporarily reverses that decision.  How is anyone supposed to make solid business decisions in such an environment?  Our economy has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time, and we need to take bold action to fix things.  But if legal battles are going to be constantly upending the rules of the game, there is no way that we are going to be able to pull out of our economic death spiral.

On Wednesday, three judges at the U.S. Court of International Trade made headlines all over the world when they dramatically struck down all of President Trump’s tariffs…

A federal court on Wednesday ruled that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority to impose sweeping tariffs that have raised the cost of imports for everyone from giant businesses to everyday Americans.

But the administration immediately appealed the decision on Wednesday night, leaving the situation uncertain for consumers and companies and potentially prolonging the battle over whether Trump’s import duties will stand – and possibly reshape the global economy.

A three-judge panel at the US Court of International Trade, a relatively low-profile court in Manhattan, stopped Trump’s global tariffs that he imposed citing emergency economic powers, including the “Liberation Day” tariffs he announced on April 2. It also prevents Trump from enforcing his tariffs placed earlier this year against China, Mexico and Canada, designed to combat fentanyl coming into the United States.

Many news outlets on the left were in a celebratory mood once this decision was announced.

For example, the following comes from Politico…

The U.S. Court of International Trade’s unanimous ruling against Trump’s signature tariffs is not the first judicial rebuke of Trump’s second term administration — and it will not be the last — but it may be the most serious and consequential to date. For the time being, the decision provides a major source of relief to the large majority of Americans who opposed Trump’s tariffs; to the U.S. businesses, both large and small, whose operations were existentially threatened by a policy that changed by the day; to the country’s foreign trading partners, whose economies were thrown into disarray; and to international financial markets, which quickly rose after the decision came down.

And the Chinese were quite thrilled by the decision as well…

China reiterated its call for the U.S. to abolish its tariffs after a panel of federal judges ruled that President Donald Trump did not have the authority to introduce them under the emergency powers he had used. The Trump administration is appealing the decision.

He Yongqian, spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry, said Beijing has “noticed that the court ruled that tariffs imposed over [the] fentanyl issue and Trump administration’s worldwide reciprocal tariffs are illegal and blocked them from going into effect.”

“China has always maintained that there are no winners in a trade war and that protectionism has no way out,” He said, according to state media outlet Global Times.

But the truth is that this court decision really didn’t change much at all.

Economists at Goldman Sachs quickly pointed out that the Trump administration has other ways to impose tariffs and that this ruling “might not change the final outcome for most major US trading partners”…

Goldman Sachs economists said the White House has a few tools at its disposal that could ensure the court ruling is only a temporary problem.

“This ruling represents a setback for the administration’s tariff plans and increases uncertainty but might not change the final outcome for most major US trading partners,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a research note.

“For now, we expect the Trump administration will find other ways to impose tariffs,” they added.

In particular, the Trump administration could use “Section 122 of U.S. trade law, Section 301 investigations and Section 338 of the Trade Act of 1930” to impose new tariffs in place of the tariffs that were struck down…

The Trump administration nevertheless has other legal means of imposing tariffs, Goldman says, flagging Section 122 of U.S. trade law, Section 301 investigations and Section 338 of the Trade Act of 1930.

Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 does not require a formal investigation and could therefore be one of the swiftest ways to get around the court roadblock.

“The administration could quickly replace the 10% across-the-board tariff with a similar tariff of up to 15% under Sec. 122,” analysts at Goldman said.

But for now, none of that will be necessary, because the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has temporarily stopped the decision by the US Court of International Trade from taking effect…

A federal appeals court on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily pause a lower-court ruling that struck down most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The Trump administration had earlier told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that it would seek “emergency relief” from the Supreme Court as soon as Friday if the tariff ruling was not quickly put on pause.

The judgment issued Wednesday night by the U.S. Court of International Trade is “temporarily stayed until further notice while this court considers the motions papers,” the appeals court said in its order.

What a mess.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is insisting that this is a matter that will ultimately need to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court…

• “There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision making process,” she said. “America cannot function if President Trump, or any other president for that matter, has their sensitive diplomatic or trade negotiations railroaded by activist judges.”
• She added, “But ultimately, the Supreme Court must put an end to this for the sake of our Constitution.”

She is right.

The Supreme Court will need to get involved.

But how long will that take?

And at this stage, it is very unclear what the Supreme Court will choose to do…

“At the moment, it is anyone’s guess as to whether these very unpopular tariffs will be reinstated on appeal or by the Supreme Court,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, in a May 29 research note. “So, uncertainty is now poised to escalate.”

It could take weeks or even months before a final decision is reached.

So what are U.S. businesses supposed to do during that time?

I have heard from a number of U.S. business owners that are experiencing quite a bit of stress right now.

Sadly, the numbers show that the U.S. economy had shifted into contraction mode even before the global trade war erupted…

According to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the advanced GDP Growth Rate is expected to have contracted by 0.2% in the January-March period. The readings show a marked pullback from the prior quarter’s 2.4% expansion.

The drama that has played out right in front of our eyes this week is yet another example of how broken our system has become.

In the months ahead, there will be many more matters that directly affect our economy that will end up in the courts, and unelected judges will get to decide what happens.

It is not good for our society to have endless battles between the executive branch and the judicial branch.

Meanwhile, Congress is so paralyzed that it literally can’t seem to get much of anything done.

If you are trying to run a business in the midst of this madness, you definitely have my sympathy, and I have a feeling that a lot more uncertainty is ahead of us.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important Newsand he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

American universities are where people go to learn and teach. They’re also where research and development happens. Over the past eight decades, universities have received billions in federal dollars to help that happen. Those dollars have contributed to innovations like: Drone technology. Inhalable Covid vaccines. Google search code.

The Trump administration is cutting or threatening to cut federal funding for research. Federal funding for all kinds of science is at its lowest level in decades.

Today on the show: when did the government start funding research at universities? And will massive cuts mean the end of universities as we know them?

We hear from the man who first pushed the government to fund university research and we talk to the chancellor of a big research school, Washington University in St. Louis. He opens up his books to show us how his school gets funded and what it would mean if that funding went away.

This episode is part of our series Pax Americanaabout how the Trump administration and others are challenging a set of post-World War II policies that placed the U.S. at the center of the economic universe. Listen to our episode about the reign of the dollar.

This episode was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Harry Paul. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / Tiktok / Our weekly Newsletter.

Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.

Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Music: Universal Music Production – “Quiescent” and “Walk the Dream.” Audio Network – “Star Alignment.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal District on Thursday granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily put on hold the New York-based Court of International Trade judgment that struck down President Trump’s tariffs a day earlier.

The court stayed the order while the legal proceedings play out.

The plaintiffs — a group of U.S. states and small businesses — were asked to respond to the Trump administration’s motions for a stay by June 5. A U.S. government response may be filed by June 9, the court said.

The order capped a frenzy of news related to the president’s tariff policy. On Wednesday evening, the Court of International Trade ruled that the tariffs Trump imposed on April 2 on most countries are illegal. And earlier Thursday, a second federal court — the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia — blocked Trump’s authority to unilaterally impose tariffs, ruling in favor of two Illinois toy importers, but the judge in the case, Rudolph Contreras, paused his ruling for 14 days while the government appeals. Both those courts ruled that the tariffs exceeded the president’s power under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which the Trump administration cited in imposing those tariffs.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday: “We expect to fight this battle all the way to the Supreme Court.”

Federal trade court blocks Trump’s emergency tariffs, saying he overstepped authority

Wednesday’s order — and what is almost certain to be a prolonged legal battle — struck at the heart of the sweeping tariffs, which unsettled consumers and sent stock markets plummeting.

Trump had moved to temporarily scale down those tariffs back to 10%. The ruling also struck down separate tariffs Trump imposed on China, Canada and Mexico, which the administration justified as a reaction to fentanyl trafficking.

In their Wednesday rulingthe court’s three-judge panel wrote that Trump’s worldwide tariffs had exceeded his power under IEEPA.

“Because of the Constitution’s express allocation of the tariff power to Congress … we do not read IEEPA to delegate an unbounded tariff authority to the President,” the court wrote.

The White House responded by rejecting the court’s authority.

“It is not for unelected judges to decide how to properly address a national emergency,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement. “President Trump pledged to put America First, and the Administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American Greatness.”

IEEPA, the law at the heart of the case, had never been used to impose tariffs until Trump did so. As the name suggests, the law gives a president broad economic powers during a national emergency.

The judgment came in a case brought against the administration by 12 states and five businesses.

While the court found Trump had exceeded his authority by imposing broad worldwide tariffs, the three-judge panel made a different argument in ruling against the fentanyl tariffs.

In that case, the court found that the president’s argument — that the tariffs will create leverage to get other countries to crack down on drug trade — invalidates the tariffs. Under IEEPA, the judges wrote, a tariff must directly “deal with” the emergency a president cites when imposing the tariff. The fentanyl tariffs do not directly address the drug trade, the judges wrote, but instead merely attempt to create economic pressure within other countries.

The three judges were appointed by three separate presidents: Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan and Trump himself.

Top Trump advisers have been boasting about ‘awesome’ trade deals the administration is negotiating with other countries. But are these deals real? Today on the show, we ask a former U.S. trade negotiator whether these agreements hold up.

Related episodes:
Dealmaker Don v. Tariff Man Trump (Apple / Spotify)
Why there’s no referee for the trade war (Apple / Spotify)
Is this a bank?

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

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The British have a reputation for loving underdogs. The flip side of this is that we also enjoy seeing the mighty have a wobble. And there’s nobody mightier than the US president.

The investment consensus in London has been consistent with the dinner party consensus: President Donald Trump is a bluffer and his tariff threats are hollow; therefore our portfolios should hold few US equities.

The US court rulings this week, the first finding the bulk of Trump’s tariffs to be unlawful followed by the reprieve on appeal putting this decision on pause, have only added to the schadenfreude. Perhaps the president missed the issue being outlined in rap in the musical Hamilton: it was, after all, only a central matter in the new constitution since independence had been triggered by tax and tariff issues.

Whether this should have come as a surprise or not, the only important issue is how investors ought to respond. Should we carry on diversifying away from the US and piling into European stocks?

It’s the kind of sentiment that does well at dinner parties, but I have found that you shouldn’t let your dinner party views determine your portfolio — at least not without good reason.

Firstly, Congress taking a greater role in tariff policy may alter the path, but not the direction. After all, it followed a firm line with China, escalating under the first Trump presidency, but one which continued under Biden. And trade disagreements between the US and EU predate even those with China.

So we could end up with increased tariffs whatever happens. And even a modest increase can play havoc with companies’ operations.

If the current 10 per cent tariff on European exports to the US remains, or is increased slightly, the EU may choose to ignore it, or it might mirror them, raising the price we pay for US made goods.

In an attempt to get my head around US tariffs, I tried to add up how much stuff I buy was made in America. It doesn’t amount to all that much — and a 10 per cent price rise due to tariffs would probably mean I substituted some local equivalents. Maybe I have shown myself as being a non-Bourbon drinking, non-Harley riding bloke who no longer looks good in jeans, but I am not alone.

Tariffs are only part of the reason investors are switching from the US into European stocks, of course. There is also the budget situation, the perceived lower valuations and a belief that the US is a less reliable place to invest than it has been. But investors switching out of the US and into Europe face one major hurdle — the shorter list of companies with interesting growth potential.

Not surprisingly, European defence stocks have led performance. I doubt that anyone will be sending a thank-you letter to JD Vance, but his calls for European nations to boost their own defence spending have brought the bloc together on security policy in a way that Putin didn’t manage.

That said, the larger European defence companies sometimes seem to make the kit of past wars — tanks and battleships, rather than drones and cyber attacks. Given how far the shares have risen, one needs to select stocks which will see significant new orders.

Nearly a quarter of the European equity index is made up of financial stocks. European banks are enjoying the higher interest rate environment.

But the extra income they receive from higher lending rates will seem modest compared with any rise in bad debts from the companies they lend to. And even a middling-bad tariff outcome is likely to bankrupt quite a few

As we started from a situation where US equities seemed significantly over-represented in global indices, even a modest reduction in US allocations has left a lot of money looking for a home. Having money burning a hole in fund managers’ pockets is always a worry.

The good news is that, for longer term investors, a number of Europe’s top stocks from the 2010s have been poor performers in the 2020s. I should know — my funds own them. What they have in common is that they were premium rated for their China business five years ago, but the China slowdown since then has both slowed their growth and led to lower valuations for the stocks.

From Louis Vuitton to L’Oréal to Schneider, large European companies have focused on China rather than the US over the past decade and we own all three. There are now signs that the China property slump is past the worst, and the People’s Bank of China policies to restore confidence, announced a year ago, are having an effect. Chinese consumers could use some of the product that the US does not want to receive and China seems no longer to be buying so many US bonds.

Thinking back to the European property crunch in 2008-9, it is worth investing in strong companies whose businesses have coped with the problem years, but being wary of weaker companies which may have made cuts to survive. Although L’Oréal is quite a pricey stock, its US rival Estée Lauder might find any US-China tariff outcome harder to handle than it does.

Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that tariffs might not be the main market drama of the summer.

That might come from Republicans in the Senate who have objections to Trump’s tax giveaway and its impact on US debt. We have already seen the president “pause” some tariffs when 10-year bond yields hit 4.5 per cent — we are back there again and longer-dated bond auctions are struggling to sell around the world.

The argument is that the tax cuts will lead to stronger growth in the end. Some will take the view that this gives the US a longer-term growth story absent from Europe; others will think they heard this before from Kwasi Kwarteng.

If you wish to let off steam about Trump and his diplomatic style, it would probably be no challenge to arrange a dinner party for like-minded guests. Then, in the morning, you can get back to investing in the best companies regardless of their country of origin.

Simon Edelstest is a Fund Manager at Goshawk Asset Management