Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s video from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see more of his videos. Hello, this is Victor Davis Hanson for The Daily Signal. I think most of our listeners, I know I do, favor the current administration, what it’s accomplished. Its miraculous achievements on the border, on energy production, reduction of crime. The “Big, Beautiful Bill” has a lot of good elements in it. Foreign policy has been spectacular. Denuclearizing for the present Iranian theocracy. Having achieved seven or eight ceasefires abroad. Trying to address the war in Ukraine. These are all positive developments. But there are land mines that the Trump administration has to be very careful of. One of them is that, in his success overseas, President Donald Trump has naturally talked about achieving peace with Ethiopia and Egypt, or Pakistan or India, or what we accomplish by taking out the nuclear facilities in Iran, etc. But the elections are not won on foreign policy, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately. They’re won on economics. And the Left, in that vacuum, and that lack of praise for the accomplishments of the Trump administration on energy, on gross domestic product, on the stock market, on deregulation, on tax reform, and what will happen in 2026 when, I think, foreign investment and these new technologies will help, in addition, spur the economy and relieve our worries about inflation and affordability—we have to talk about that. Specifically, he has to talk about the comparison of the Biden administration with both his first term, but more importantly, with what he’s done in the first 10 to 11 months, and what will ensue in 2026 for the things he’s doing now. Very quickly, a second land mine is, why would we want to increase the Chinese student population from the current near 300,000 to 600,000? That’s contrary to the MAGA agenda of “America First.” There are 300,000 Americans that would love to come to college that either can’t afford it or can’t get in because of the competition with over 1 million foreign students—1 million foreign students welcomed by the universities because their governments pay the full bill and they can overcharge them by 10% or 15%. And yet, we know that of the 300,000 students, roughly, here, that 1% or 2% or 3% or 4% engage in active espionage. That’s several thousand—2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. We know that because when we look at the end result—sophisticated satellites, rocketry, aircraft carriers—they look almost identical to ours. And they are the results of skipping billions of dollars in investment, years of research, and leapfrogging to parity with us by appropriating our technology, in large part, and often, by the presence of so many Chinese nationals. When we were in a race, an existential race, with the Soviet Union, we did not have Russian students here. That would’ve been seen as insane. So, we should be trying to gradually, without provocation, reduce the size of the Chinese nationalist population, not double it. And finally, there’s this question, very controversially, of HB-1 visas. These are the visas that are reserved for people with unique skills that, supposedly, Americans don’t have, but they would be integral to our prosperity, security, and national success. Ph.D.s in computer engineering. Master’s degrees in French language, as a professor. A high-stakes athlete or model, even, to enrich our culture. And nobody objects to that. There’s about 500,000 of these HB-1 visas already. But as part of the negotiations with trade and tariffs and our foreign relations with other countries, we have said that we would like to take in a lot more HB-1 visas. The problem with that is these countries don’t view it the same way as we do. They would like to send their students with bachelor’s degrees or the students themselves would like to come with no singular skills at all—any different than most Americans who graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, finance. In other words, we have plenty of Americans that would be able to do the things that foreign nationals would that we would bring in over the current limit of 500,000. And it’s contrary to the MAGA agenda of America First. So, it’s a contradiction in terms and it will hurt the president. So, I would suggest, very humbly, that we take a second look at doubling the number of Chinese students. We take a second look at doubling the number of HB-1 visas. I would take a second look at the public relations and the communications about the economy. And begin, right now, talking about how it is stronger than perceptions from the Left, especially, and the media. But more importantly, the things that are going on right now by the administration that will improve the economy radically in 2026. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Beware of These Political Land Mines, President Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.