ChinaTalk's Jordan Schneider: Trump tariffs, immigration policy, and why the US is unready for drone warfare

with sound effects. You're playing around with backgrounds, too. I think it's the rat. A year of the rat. That seems Last year was last year was dragon. So it's like it's worse after. Okay. Okay. Um I want to start with the victory lap. I said uh I said tariff war going to not be a big thing.

We're not going to be talking about it in four four years. Push back. We're not going to be talking about it in four years. So So So when you came on last time, we were talking about how it seemed like complete doom and gloom. like the Trump tariffs were absolute chaos. It was complete disaster.

And I was saying that like this is within Trump's control and so he could potentially roll them back and the market would go back up and everyone would be breathing a sigh of relief like oh okay that was a crazy time but we're not in this insanely high tariff regime so things aren't that bad.

and we would look back on it like we looked at the previous trade war which was a crazy time but did not like permanently change the structure of America. And so it feels like we we we we walked to the edge and then we walked back from the edge and it's less of a story now. But am I right or wrong? Let's be clear.

Who's who's walking him back from the edge? The justice system. the Supreme Court is going to take the decision out of his hands. Sure.

And then it'll just kind of be slower and more awkward and his lawyers will actually have to do work to write these section two um 232 investigations which like I guess they'll just have Chad GPT, right? Cuz like there are no lawyers right now and and USR. Um but come on, man.

I mean look two days ago like some reporter asked him about the taco trade and then he said, "Fuck it. We're going back up to 50. " So, look, I mean, it's the the story, the saga is not done. We have four years of this. Um, old men don't change their habits all that often. This is clearly the thing he enjoys most.

I've taught dog I've taught old dogs new tricks. I got all the time. I got a 10-year-old Newfland at home. He just learned balance the ball in his nose. He's He's doing great. No, no, I hear you. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He should. He should. Well, well, well then, um, what else is is driving the news?

Um, obviously the, uh, the Ukrainian drone attack is very interesting in the Ukraine Russian theater. Uh, is there a reaction from your community in China world yet, or are we waiting to hear how that plays out?

Already, we're seeing defense tech companies talk about counter UAS more seriously, uh, DoD procurement modernization. Uh, you could imagine that this brings DJI into focus, but how should we be framing it within the the China lens? I got a um I I got a line from a group chat, please.

Um, what uh don't ask a woman their age and don't ask a teal funded defense tech startup where they get their batteries from. Okay. Um, so look, I don't I don't know. I mean it's it's uh it's a brave new world we're walking into and I'm worried that we're not ready.

I think there are um definitely a lot of advantages that the US has but one of the big ones is manufacturing and and sort of and and like speed and agility of procurement and if you look at what's happened in Ukraine over the past two years like the amount of iterations that all of these drones have gone from and the different electronic warfare like responses and counter responses and the the sort of the the the size and scope and uh of these different drones and being able to scale up manufacturing of them and then now we have fiber optic drones and now we have like things to cut the the cables of the fiber optic drones.

I mean just the the the speed at which you have to innovate when you are fighting and dying is so much faster than what the US um uh does. And because um uh the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not against high um you know we're not against like great powers. Thank god.

Um the sort like the new things that the enemy was able to bring to the battlefield was much less challenging and you could kind of be like fat and lazy and still mostly be okay and not have I mean even even IEDs massively transformed the battlefield at the time and that was another kind of asymmetric trade in some way where you know a small homemade uh device could could take out, you know, cause huge loss of life.

But but your point's totally taken.

wasn't like 4 million drones a year being produced and flying through the sky and and taking so many IEDs that that it did kind of breed private sector defense innovation in the sense that like one of the first use cases for Palunteer was map all the IEDs see that if it if they if the ones in this area have nails and the one in that area have TNT and dynamites over here and C4 is being used over here you can kind of cluster those and see that the bomb maker must be in this city and then you can go and find them.

Um, and so I mean, yeah, it is this like cat-and- mouse game, right?

But I think if you just if you look at like the story of the procurement side of all that with the MRAP and the other sort of like physical uh uh like hardware changes that the US government needed to to supply its troop to supply the troops like it was so [ __ ] slow. Um, sure.

And, uh, you know, not not the best showing, I think, uh, if like even even like al-Qaeda and can kind of get you on your toes when it comes to technological innovation. So, I don't know. It's a bummer, but uh, hopefully folks are are waking up and doing their best on this.

I mean, I Yeah, you mentioned like the drone battery thing, but like it feels like people woke up to that after Skyo, the the the Skyio uh, battery ban. And so I would imagine that there's that there's probably dozens of companies working on restoring drone batteries right now, right? I I hope I hope.

I mean, I'm sure they are, but it's it's some uh it's uh Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's look, it's an obvious thing.

Um but what what's interesting I think is like to what extent uh on both the Ukraine and the Russia side of this there are just like Chinese parts that are that are driving both of the um uh both of the armies which is okay let's let's switch to a kind of a less contentious issue immigration what's going on uh what's going on in terms of the students students research labs what's what's the high level update well I want to challenge you guys a little bit um because you have a lot of CEOs and investors in the Silicon Valley broader ecosystem and they as well as anyone else in this country understand just how important international talent is to the future of American science and technology flourishing.

So, I would be really curious um for to to get these folks on the record to just even talk about their experiences kind of like coming to America uh and getting their, you know, getting their first H-1V visa and the sort of the the challenges and the opportunity that that like you have to and the sacrifices you have to make.

I mean, the the woman the woman we had on right before you was from Turkey, made it to Stanford, had some random Turkey businessman pay for her flight so she could just get here and is now building, you know, incredible company.

So, uh, we certainly recognize the importance of inter international talent and I'm broadly in favor of brain draining the world as I think you are as well. Um, I don't I don't follow immigration, you know, law or trends nearly to the level that I imagine you do, specifically around China.

Um, and it's an interesting time. I mean, we had uh some Stanford students on that had written that article uh that was uh widely the CCP. Yeah.

Well, it was widely read and it was also controversial because many of the sources were anonymous, but it also seems to be something that people just take as fact that there is a lot of uh you know sort of low-level espionage information gathering happening on campus.

But I I was more less less trying to get your take uh your take more trying to get like the late the core kind of development development. So, I think I think there are two Well, it's it's there are a number of things going on.

Um, first, the Trump administration is threatening uh like revoking Harvard's ability to take international students. We'll just we'll see how legal that is.

Um, but that is a remarkable development and something that I think is sort of like spread if it like ends up being a a a tool that's used across a lot of different universities is really dramatic.

Like if you look at a lot of the sort of top 10 lists of publications, there's like Harvard and then there's MIT and then there's eight Chinese universities. And uh the fact that um you know they're going after like what is the like one of the four most important centers of research in America uh is really concerning.

And I think um part of you know if you look at these if you look at the STEM programs in America oftentimes I think CS is like over 70% foreign and uh the the programs aren't stupid like they want more American students um because they understand that uh there there are a lot of challenges by by having uh you know you you end up having this sort of exposure but the fact is just the talent isn't there um and you want to you want to have the best and brightest in your programs go on to you know do amazing research and start amazing companies.

And so this is sort of the world we live in where um you know American primary and secondary education is not going to fill up these slots fast enough. Um particularly for you know CS is kind of an exception to the rule. A lot of the hard sciences um you know are grueling. They don't pay particularly well.

um and the sort of the the options uh to to just like you know be a CS major in in in college and like go get a degree for the past 15 years have been much more um lucrative than like studying mechanical engineering or electrical engineering.

So, um, kind of if we're trying to sort of like re-industrialize and, um, build the future, like you need PhDs and you want the best PhDs and scaring them off by having the, um, uh, the head of the the nominee for the head of the immigration process say that um, he's in favor of revoke revoking OPT, which is like the ability for students once they graduate um, for any major, I think you get a year, and if it's a STEM major, you get three years where you just have a blanket work authoriz ization.

So you don't need your employer to, you know, get you in the H1B lottery and sponsor you is a big part of the value proposition um for going to school in the US alongside being able to go to the best research um universities on the planet.

So you have on the one hand from like the demand side I guess um uh students uh being a lot you know just having to price in an uncertainty factor of whether or not they'll be able to stay in their stay in the US much less stay to the to the to finish their program.

Um, and then on this on the supply side, I guess, um, the the Trump administration, uh, having the NSF spend half as much money as it's authorized to spend. Um, and kind of blanket cutting off universities which are on the [ __ ] list for whatever reason.

Um, to the tunes of uh, you know, billions of dollars just like sorry ons Hopkins, sorry Harvard, sorry Penn. um which is leading to layoffs and worse research and I'm annoyed because the future is going to come slower and America is going to be worse off um because we're taking these um like incredibly unforced errors.

Have you seen any pressure on the 01 program?

We talked to Sigil Wen Tealfellow who's been trying to speed up the 01 process for those extraordinary uh uh candidates and it seemed like uh he was pretty optimistic about that program continuing and flourishing but maybe that's just not enough in your in your mind when a year right? Yeah.

Um it and and other thing and like uh I mean we have 500,000 foreign students in America. I mean, aside from like a like this is the thing that is funding the universities. Like there are there are like maybe 10 schools that have billion-dollar endowments.

Um I mean you're going to start seeing a lot of universities go under. Um which is like just sad in general. Um but this is this like education is not a zero sum thing. And I think that's kind of like one of the the the the more sad talking points. It's like why aren't there more slots for Americans?

It's like no like the American slots and all these universities are being subsidized by all the undergraduates and master students from abroad who are paying full ride um to this where you know we have like uh you know instate tuition and and whatnot. I mean it's a it's a it's a different ball game.

And how how would you think about changing higher ed?

Uh I mean there's been this this idea that uh you know like Harvard for example was founded hundreds of years ago and was servicing a population of maybe like 30 million people and now there's probably a billion people that have heard of Harvard or may maybe like in the candidate pool um and but the but the class size hasn't scaled.

Would you scale up these elite universities and try and get the elite pedagogy into more hands or uh into more minds or are there other things that you think we could we we could do. Um because this feels driven by some sort of dissatisfaction with the results of higher ed. I don't know if you agree with them.

Maybe you think it's perfect, but uh certainly there's the first question of like there might be a flaw. Uh there's a lot of student debt. There's a lot of people going to schools and taking on debt to pursue degrees that don't necessarily pay and they don't make economic sense.

How would you change higher ed without disrupting like the the the brain drain equation? Sure. I mean, I think at a macro level it's important to recognize that like anti-intellectualism like beating up on the universities is has like a long and storyried tradition in American history.

Uh you know going uh going back to McCarthy and even before. So like the fact that politicians are making hay [ __ ] on uh academia is not like something that is particularly novel.

Um should uh you know if I was like the the secretary of education and I wanted to use a stick, I would uh do the exact thing you exact thing you said, John, and say like you need to spend down a percentage of your endowment every year if you want to stay uh tax eligible and does that mean uh you know uh growing your class size by 25% every year?

Sure. Absolutely. Like there are there is a glut of professors and there is a demand glut and like who are like who is gaining by Harvard staying small like the few people who get in who like get to feel more special about themselves. Yeah. What is your model for higher ed?

I mean like Tyler Cowan kind of uh mentioned he he posited that higher ed is a bundle of goods. It's it's both a a daycare for parents to get their kids out of the house. It's a dating service. It's also uh you know a a series of textbooks that are you are forced to read. It's also like a music festival.

It's a you know it's it's a bunch of different products kind of bundled and so and it's prestige and signaling and and and essentially uh a one-word summary of your SAT score. Um and you could potentially unbundle those. I don't know if that's necessary score. I like that. Right. Right.

Like like if you say Harvard people know okay like potentially you've been filtered for IQ at some level. Uh, and so you know, uh, like I is is that is that the correct model? Do you disagree with that or or do you think that that's a good thing?

Because I'm hearing like like I'm hearing higher ed is perfect and I I don't really buy that, but but but I'd like to know what vectors you would improve. Well, I mean I think like uh there is a real golden goose aspect to what we have particularly when it comes to science research, right? Okay.

So, um you know, look, I was a history major. Um, and uh, I think a lot of the sort of like soft they don't teach us any anything like real stuff like critique baked into what you said is is a lot more applicable to humanities. I mean, thinking back like could I be where I am today?

Would I have the mind I had if I just like read all the books they assigned me in college instead of taking the courses? Like I think so. Um, but you know, could I become a biophysicist without like having access to a lab and professors to like train and tutor me? I don't I'm I don't really think that's the case.

So there so particularly when it comes to um to sort of science and engineering disciplines like there is a real aspect of mentorship um and like handholding that needs to exist. And I love that. I agree with the bio side. It like crisper came out of academia. The transformer did not.

And in fact, the one the one academic lab that that is listed on the transformer paper, attention is all you need. Canadian. It's a Canadian. Elizabeth Holmes had never been in a lab before she started a 10 billion company. All those no.

If you if you actually go back to the transformer paper and look at the um the authors, most of them, by the way, have PhDs and most of their PhDs were in labs that were funded by the National Science Foundation.

So I don't necessarily think you could like write off AI um as not being something that like had b had government funded basic research behind it. I think that was absolutely a crucial thing.

Um and you know we've had a lot of uh AI winters over the past um few decades where people have sort of industry has basically given up on the technology and the only folks that were still funding it and doing the research were um in government uh you know uh given government money and working in in in universities.

So like it's the it's the place where not where the stuff that you can't get ventureback funding happens and you know I think that everyone can get venture back funding now. There's unlimited venture. There will never be enough venture capital.

Let's just venture fund everything even the basic research that won't return uh ROI. Yeah. I'm sick of VCs preferring a deck. Like don't even prefer it. Just idea. Yeah. Check. This is the long-term solution. Just just just I want to go through a couple of you guys.

You got executive order for DJI ban in the next two months. Yes or no? Sure. Sure. I'm worried about my drone racing league. Yeah. I hope I hope they I hope they stop. Do you actually Do you actually race drones? Chinese. Last last one. Chinese ARVR. Should we be paying attention to it? Oh, interesting. Yeah, man.

And I wrote a whole feature about the Chinese AR ecosystem. There are it's a it's a really interesting development because basically what happened in the US um was uh Meta consolidated and you had a handful of startups that all kind of gave up because there was a trillion dollar gorilla in the room.

But China is a much more dynamic ecosystem. You have like six or seven players who are all exploring all these different hardware trees of like where to put the battery and do you need the screen on the glasses? Do you not need the screen on the glasses?

Um, you know, China talkmed media, uh, it's one of our more recent articles kind of looking at at at Rokid and a number of other a number of other Chinese startups which like all have products that are $300 to $600 and are really cool. Um, can I pitch can I show a book before we go to the next?

Okay, so um, uh, it's coming out tomorrow I believe. The party's interests come first, Joseph Terigian. It's a 500page uh biography of Xi Jang who is uh Xi Jinping's dad and it is this incredibly detailed um like wild ride through this guy's life.

He started as a um he joined the communist party when he was 15 in 1926 and the first half of the book is like all these crazy war stories where he is like fighting and executing nationalists and Japanese and then um you know he becomes he's like the he's like the highest flyer in the 1950s like he's promoted faster than everyone in his 30s and then the culture revolution hits and his life gets completely ruined.

Um, Xiinping's 15. His dad is this like black stain on the party.

And the amount of sort of like family trauma um that the uh the dad and then the son by proxy like ingests over the course of their life is just a is is is kind of an unfathomable thing um that you can only really experience by just like living day day through day through this guy's life.

and the fact that he was able to write this book. Um, you know, I see I see books with this level of detail about folks like Stalin because the archives have opened at this point. Um, but Joseph did an incredible job like reading all of these memoirs and talking to people and digging for stuff.

And um if you want a sort of window into what Chinese elite politics looks like, um it is a really um uh a really special piece of scholarship and something that comes around really rarely in the um uh in the China study space. So highly you guys should get them on the pod.

Talk about things dad and highly recommend everyone check it out. Thank you for the plug. That sounds fantastic. Let's do it. Thanks for coming on Jordan. We'll talk to you soon. Always a pleasure. Cheers. See you. Next up, we have Max from Arena Magazine. We are surrounded by journalists. Hold your position. We We