In an interview with Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham that aired on Monday and Tuesday, Trump said the US had “a lot of people coming in from China” and other countries, and highlighted America’s “massive system of colleges and universities”.

“And if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy, you would have half the colleges in the United States go out of business,” he said.

“I actually think it’s good to have outside, uh, countries,” Trump said, referring to international students.

“They’re not the French, they’re the Chinese. They spy on us, they steal our intellectual property,” Ingraham pressed.

“Well, do you think the French are better? I don’t know. I’ll tell you, I’m not so sure. We’ve had a lot of problems with the French, where we get taxed very unfairly on our technology, with, you know, they put 25 per cent taxes on American products,” Trump said.