Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to preten…
Most schools are middling - but the US was willing to give generous scholarships and post-graduation grants to smart immigrants to build it here. There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it. We've been slipping into rent seeking at least since the eighties though - so the share that actual researchers get has been shrinking while the c…
Yes, this is still true, and why immigration to America maintained its previous momentum. It was often easier to get a student visa than a different immigration visa, so for the past 30 years or so that has been the primary route, and in turn has raised the prestige of American universities.
However, if you look at the American-born population, their students are not impressive. Quite the opposite, for how much funding their education gets. And—by federal interest—only ~10% of the undergraduate student body can be foreigners. Professors at American universities routinely complain about their students' low standards. Things are not the same as they were ten years ago, let alone thirty or fifty years ago.
I think international sentiment has not shifted to the point that this is common knowledge—that if people want to go international, they better attend a school in China or Switzerland—but it would have happened in a few years with or without Trump, and the decline would be as apparent as the primary and secondary school decline has been.