US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that US colleges would struggle without Chinese students, amid backlash from his base after he suggested he could let 600,000 Chinese college students into the country as part of trade talks with Beijing.

At a televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump was asked about his comments on increasing student visas for Chinese students.

“I think it’s very insulting to say students can’t come here because they’ll go out and start building schools and they’ll be able to survive it,” Trump said.

“But I like that their students come here. I like that it that other countries’ students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn’t? Our college system would go to hell very quickly and it wouldn’t be the top colleges. It would be colleges that struggle on the bottom.”

Trump had faced a backlash from usually ardent supporters, including Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, when he said on Monday that he would allow 600,000 Chinese students into American universities and colleges.

That would be more than twice the number of Chinese students enrolled in the 2023-24 school year.

Former adviser Steve Bannon criticised the announcement on Tuesday, saying “there should be no foreign students here for the moment."

It was a shift after the State Department announced in late May that it would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students, including those with connections with the Chinese Communist Party or studying in critical fields." (Agencies)