Trump Is Trying to Counter Foreign Influence, Not Invite It

By Aaron Kliegman Americans are all too familiar with the bogus narrative that President Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government to win the 2016 election. Indeed, Democrats and “Never Trump” Republicans have repeated this tired conspiracy theory for years with an almost maniacal obsession. And now, the complicit news media is pushing the same hoax — this time about the 2020 election. Ironically, President Trump is actually the one working to prevent nefarious foreign influence on domestic activities in the US, despite what his opponents claim. His administration has taken recent, unprecedented steps to crack down on foreign funding to American think tanks and universities, protecting their integrity and security from adversaries. That these institutions house some of America’s brightest minds makes the Trump administration’s actions all the more important for national security. On Tuesday, the Department of Education released a report detailing how top American universities have “massively underreported” funding they’ve accepted from China, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, some of which the document correctly describes as “foreign adversaries.” The report is mainly based on probes into 12 schools — including Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and Georgetown — which failed to disclose a combined $6.5 billion in foreign funding. Most of the universities had dealings with Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that acts as a tool of China’s communist dictatorship. Cornell University, for example, never reported to American authorities some $1 million in contracts from Huawei. (In total, Cornell failed to disclose more than $1.2 billion in foreign funds that it received in recent years, including $760 million related to its campus in Qatar.) Under the leadership of Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education has been investigating whether universities are reporting gifts and contracts of $250,000 or more from foreign sources. The schools are required to do so by law, but the statute hasn’t been seriously enforced in years. In fact, American universities have provided intimate, effectively unfettered access to foreign governments for far too long. And there’s been little to no oversight or transparency to deter illicit behavior. The Trump administration is changing that, correctly recognizing the potential threat that foreign governments can pose by buying influence at elite American institutions. As the report notes, American higher education is a “critical human and technological strategic resource,” and institutions such as America’s elite universities are “technological treasure troves where leading and internationally competitive fields, such as nanoscience, are booming.” Accordingly, the report continues, foreign countries and non-state actors have, for decades, “devoted significant resources to influence or control teaching and research, to the theft of intellectual property or even espionage, and to the use of American campuses as centers for propaganda operations and other projections of soft power.” These threats didn’t emerge yesterday. In 2011, during the Obama administration, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Strategic Partnership Unit warned in a white paper that foreign adversaries and competitors “take advantage of” American higher education “to improve their economies and militaries by stealing intellectual property to gain advantages over the United States.” The paper added that such countries “use varied means to acquire information and technology to gain political, military, and economic advantages.” Such means include recruiting individuals for espionage, exploiting the student visa program for “improper purposes,” and spreading false information for “political or other reasons.” The US should be especially concerned about China. Since 2018, for example, when the Department of Justice announced its China Initiative, the department has filed over 20 criminal cases concerning export controls, economic espionage, and theft of trade secrets. No wonder Secretary of Defense Mark Esper warned last year that China is “perpetrating the greatest intellectual property theft in human history” as it seeks global dominance. For similar reasons, the Trump administration is also demanding that American think tanks disclose funding they receive from foreign governments. And these aren’t empty words: Thinks tanks that refuse to comply will risk losing access to State Department officials. “The unique role of think tanks in the conduct of foreign affairs makes transparency regarding foreign funding more important than ever,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement last week. “To protect the integrity of civil society institutions, the Department requests henceforth that think tanks and other foreign policy organizations that wish to engage with the department disclose prominently on their websites funding they receive from foreign governments, including state-owned or state-operated subsidiary entities.” All of these moves show an administration countering foreign interference in and foreign influence on American institutions — and doing so much more energetically than its predecessors. Calling out those who receive shady foreign funding and striving for maximum transparency is sound, refreshing policy. Such actions will help to resist spying and theft of intellectual property. These efforts also fit a broader pattern: As with so many of his other policies — expanding fracking, fighting Russian-led gas pipeline projects, increasing military spending — President Trump is pursuing policies that obstruct Russian interests. If Trump were a Russian mole, he’d be a terrible one. Someone should tell the media. Order Newt's Latest Book: https://www.gingrich360.com/trump-and-the-american-future

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