> people leaving their home countries to make money in the US?

To study and work, yes. We learned the trick when the Nazis chased off their scientists, doubled down on it by capturing Nazi scientists, and then developed it into a multi-decade advantage throughout the Cold War and the 1990s. Looking back, we started fucking it up with the Iraq War and financial crisis (see: A123 bankruptcy giving China its EV industry) and are now closing the chapter triumphantly.

Highly recommend The Man from the Future biography of John von Neumann. We got The Martians for a steal because Europe was too hostile to minorities and we got the Manhattan Project and computers out of the deal. Never gonna have a brain drain arbitrage opportunity like that again.

There has been a general downtrend in Chinese students studying internationally.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03-29/chinese-student-numbe...

Also US international students as percent of overall student population has been in the low end. Its mostly been universities around the world catering to international students because they pay a higher tuition and to makeup for a shortfall in domestic funding. Its much better for universities to educate the local population.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2025/12/universities-cry-po...

> A123 bankruptcy giving China its EV industry

For those who aren't aware, A123 made the batteries for the GM EV1, which GM famously killed after killing the CA clean air regulation that gave rise to it.