Just three months after the State Department announced it would “aggressively revoke” visas for Chinese students, President Donald Trump reversed course Monday, promising to more than double the number of student visas given to Chinese nationals to 600,000. The administration was right the first time. There are far too many students on college campuses dedicated to undermining U.S. national security, and the federal government should focus on cutting higher education’s dependence on foreign nationals, not making it worse.

Responding to questions about trade talks with China during a Monday Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, Trump said it was “very important” to admit more Chinese students, as many as 600,000, which is more than double the 277,000 in the country now.

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“You know what would happen if they didn’t [come to the United States]?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Our college system would go to hell very quickly. And it wouldn’t be the top colleges, it’d be colleges that struggle on the bottom.”

The White House has issued a statement saying Trump’s 600,000 “references two years worth of visas” and is “simply a continuation of existing policy.” But existing policy isn’t good enough.

To the extent that some colleges are struggling to survive, and because the birthrate is collapsing, undergraduate college enrollment peaked more than a decade ago. The solution should be to fix our fertility crisis, not replace our own population with foreign nationals, particularly those picked by an enemy dedicated to weakening America.

The Chinese Communist Party does not let just anyone have a student visa to study in the U.S. Every Chinese student who comes has been screened, indoctrinated, and trained to advance China’s interests over the U.S. China’s National Intelligence Law requires all such citizens to “support, assist, and cooperate with state intelligence work,” including when they are studying abroad.

So it is unsurprising that dozens of Chinese nationals on student visas have been arrested on spying charges in recent years. Most recently, a Chinese national was charged with theft of medical research from the University of Texas at Austin. At Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Chinese nationals on student visas are reportedly required to check in with CCP handlers weekly to report on how their research is progressing and how it can help China.

Considering how much sensitive commercial and military research is done at universities, the Trump administration should strictly limit opportunities for Chinese espionage on campuses, not enable it. In May, the State Department signaled it was committed to doing so, announcing an aggressive effort to revoke student visas for Chinese nationals in “critical fields.”

Most Chinese students are in the lucrative STEM studies already dominated by international students. Those spots should go to qualified U.S. citizens. Instead of helping China, Trump should make higher education more accessible to Americans.

In all likelihood, the president has no intention of maintaining the status quo. His rhetoric is probably about getting as good a trade deal as he can with Beijing.

But that context makes the issue more pressing. The Immigration and Nationality Act actually grants Trump the power to issue as many student visas as he wants without restriction as to numbers or countries. The only limiting principle is that American universities must enroll them first. In contrast, authority to raise and lower tariffs belongs to Congress. Trump may be exercising his lawful powers over immigration to influence a trade deal he has no legal authority to make with China.

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Fortunately, the Department of Homeland Security has issued a regulation to limit the duration of student visas to four years. This is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.

Trump may see continued Chinese access to American universities as a trade bargaining chip, but he should not do so. Using that power to court Beijing undermines U.S. security and sovereignty. To protect America’s technological edge, the right course is not to continue the status quo on Chinese student visas — it is to revoke them.