I know this is a political and touchy subject but IMHO the new policies will be a defining moment for the USA and it is relevant for tech as US tech is so successful primarily because can access the whole world as a market and can attract all the talent it needs. The things happening in US is going to break this.
If stuff continues as is, USA will have $1T car company for 350M people, $2T company for search and online ads for 350M people and $3T company that tells tablets and phones to 350M people.
How is this going to work really?
USA is going to be fine overall I guess, the country has huge land and plenty of resources and some of the greatest talent out there but do you really want to change your economy in such a way? It will be painful, you will lose all your unfair advantage. I guess a fairer world is a good thing but why are you doing it?
That's because so many of the talented people from here want to stay and so many talented people from elsewhere want (and are permitted) to come. Both are subject to change.
Yes! I can't understand why the media isn't talking about TRIPS and all of the other IP protections that the US baked into other the trade agreements. This is the only thing that matters.
If the US is going to break these agreements, other countries will decide that our IP is not worth protecting. All they need to do is revert to the laws they had before TRIPS and free trade with the US.
It's not just the tech industry. It's movies. It's pharma. It's biotech.
I've heard a few say that's what we should do here in Australia in response to tariffs. The US has now broken the free trade agreement between out two nations, se we should roll pack IP laws that were only brought in on US request to sign the trade agreement.
I personally think IP hobbles our economy by reducing competition. What's the argument in favor? American companies certainly rely on it to avoid meeting market demand. As a result, our lives are shittier and we pay more for the insult. Why would chinese (or russian, or nigerian, or venezuelan) companies not treat us better? Why are we supposed to overlook the obvious incompetence of domestic corporations when they don't want to even fund my healthcare? I say these companies would be better off burnt down.
I disagree on drug development. It is important enough we could simply pay for the research. We pay for a lot of it with taxpayer money already while the gains are privatized. The other areas are not critical to our lives and, while there is room for improvement, current IP practices are ok.
It could be... but do you really want a massive amount of public funds thrown at low-probability of success endeavors, guided by government efficiency?
Say what you want about the downsides to the current pharma development model, but those companies are highly incentivized to be as efficient with their pipeline spend as they can. And they're pretty damn good at it.
In contrast, if you use government-selected allocation, you'd turn pharma development into military procurement.
The more reasonable approach would be to enter cost-sharing agreements, where the government paid for a share of critical stages, in return for getting certain rights if the drugs were successful.
"Government efficiency" isn't the slur you seem to think. Many parts of the government are administered quite efficiently. And many large companies are not.
> do you really want to change your economy in such a way?
The dozen or so people it would make sense to ask this question to likely will not read this comment. There hasn't been democratic input to the economic policy of presidential candidates since reagan (bernie sanders aside, barely). We might be highly rated on the international index of democracies or whatever but I can't say I've ever been able to vote about economic topics that mean anything to me.
> We might be highly rated on the international index of democracies or whatever
The USA is not highly rated in the democracy index relative to what should be its peers, always hovering between 20th-30th position depending on the index. Uruguay and Costa Rica ranks higher as a full democracy than the USA.
Note: the headline is not talking about visas. What they're talking about is a status field the student visa sponsor, the university, maintains: "Yes, this person really is a student here". The student visas are contingent on the person continuing ongoing studies—a status the university certifies. The Administration is, as I parse it, fraudulently editing these fields through a backdoor, and then using that "They're not an active student at XYZ" status they forged as the basis for revoking the visas.
> Samah Sisay of the Center for Constitutional Rights told Zeteo that one’s visa being revoked does not mean that their status would be too. Unlike student visas – which are entry documents that allow someone to enter the country – student statuses are what allow people to stay in the US. To maintain one’s status, a student has to fulfill certain requirements, like being properly enrolled in classes, keeping documents up to date, and following work restrictions.
It’s the fact that the institutions e.g. Congress, Judiciary are not able or willing to push back. And so we are seeing retribution for First Amendment activities e.g. protests being widespread despite it being clearly unconstitutional.
Project 2025 was right in that if you flood the zone the system won’t be responsive enough to stop you.
This happened continuously during the Biden administration when they formed an entire network of public-private censorship and liberals told us “freedom of speech does not mean freedom of reach.” You can also reference the entire saga of Russiagate, and litany of lawfare against Trump that was looking for every and any way to jail him and his family.
anyone cheering this on really has no idea how bad this is. higher education is an area in which the US has had a completely dominant position. the smartest and most driven people from all over the world come here to learn, and start businesses here afterwards. it's a tide that raises all ships. it's not at all a mixed bag like outsourcing or the loss of domestic manufacturing.
that dominance is ending now, because of the cruel whims of one man. none of this is based on rules or process. it's the exact kind of fickle brutality people come to this country to escape. the entire thing is like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
People need to stop blaming "one man." The entire Republican party is complicit in this. Congress has the power to end this. They are controlled by the Republicans. They are not ending this because this is what they want... power without accountability or consequence.
All of that is good, its likely not to be enough, especially not in the short term. With luck, enough people doing that builds up and ends the abuses before too long, but history is full of cases where government abuses could not be stopped by peaceful opposition.
Seriously, what is the difference between USA and China?
When china used to disappear people for politics, there was a lot of gloating about how the west is better, America is better.
But is there any difference any longer? America is so close to a fascist single party that is just doing things by dictatorship and zero accountability or transparency. What is the difference?
The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
> The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
Do you remember that China only allowed its dictator to rule for 10 years and that the current dictator/sycophants removed that term limit?
Do you think America is on the same trajectory where the 4 year term limit could be amended via politics and coups? Like the one attempted on Jan 2021?
Why does the Chinese leader need to continually prove himself or else the population will overthrow him? Why do you think the Chinese people are just waiting to press the trigger on revolution? You can get to awful conditions and people still won't revolt.
US engages with its colony in ME, in worst crimes known to international law. Like crimes of aggressive war (in Syria and Yemen), and genocide, aka destruction of a group of people and its society (in Palestine).
Nobody in power in other western countries seems to be batting an eye publicly about it. Yet they bat quite a bit about Uyghur genocide (but not too much either, since EU depends a lot on Chinese trade), etc.
Seems like a free pass, due to wanting that sweet US military HW or "protection", or whatever other sociopathic considerations.
I know this is a political and touchy subject but IMHO the new policies will be a defining moment for the USA and it is relevant for tech as US tech is so successful primarily because can access the whole world as a market and can attract all the talent it needs. The things happening in US is going to break this.
If stuff continues as is, USA will have $1T car company for 350M people, $2T company for search and online ads for 350M people and $3T company that tells tablets and phones to 350M people.
How is this going to work really?
USA is going to be fine overall I guess, the country has huge land and plenty of resources and some of the greatest talent out there but do you really want to change your economy in such a way? It will be painful, you will lose all your unfair advantage. I guess a fairer world is a good thing but why are you doing it?
>and some of the greatest talent out there
That's because so many of the talented people from here want to stay and so many talented people from elsewhere want (and are permitted) to come. Both are subject to change.
One of many policies that is detrimental. One thing that does not seem to be on tech's radar at the moment is what it could mean if Trump withholds US funding from WTO (https://borderlex.net/2025/03/27/alarm-bells-in-geneva-as-us...) and it's implications per TRIPs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43490291
Yes! I can't understand why the media isn't talking about TRIPS and all of the other IP protections that the US baked into other the trade agreements. This is the only thing that matters.
If the US is going to break these agreements, other countries will decide that our IP is not worth protecting. All they need to do is revert to the laws they had before TRIPS and free trade with the US.
It's not just the tech industry. It's movies. It's pharma. It's biotech.
This will economically ruin us.
I've heard a few say that's what we should do here in Australia in response to tariffs. The US has now broken the free trade agreement between out two nations, se we should roll pack IP laws that were only brought in on US request to sign the trade agreement.
I personally think IP hobbles our economy by reducing competition. What's the argument in favor? American companies certainly rely on it to avoid meeting market demand. As a result, our lives are shittier and we pay more for the insult. Why would chinese (or russian, or nigerian, or venezuelan) companies not treat us better? Why are we supposed to overlook the obvious incompetence of domestic corporations when they don't want to even fund my healthcare? I say these companies would be better off burnt down.
I want an economy. Without IP there is no biotech. There is no drug development. There is no games industry, movies, etc.
I would agree that IP protections have gotten out of hand, and that shorter copyright would be beneficial.
But it's not beneficial when some country will decide that our drug patents are worthless because we attacked them with tariffs.
I disagree on drug development. It is important enough we could simply pay for the research. We pay for a lot of it with taxpayer money already while the gains are privatized. The other areas are not critical to our lives and, while there is room for improvement, current IP practices are ok.
> could simply pay for the research
And the Phase X safety and efficacy trials, which comprise the bulk of pharma development costs?
What about it? There's no reason it couldn't be publicly funded.
It could be... but do you really want a massive amount of public funds thrown at low-probability of success endeavors, guided by government efficiency?
Say what you want about the downsides to the current pharma development model, but those companies are highly incentivized to be as efficient with their pipeline spend as they can. And they're pretty damn good at it.
In contrast, if you use government-selected allocation, you'd turn pharma development into military procurement.
The more reasonable approach would be to enter cost-sharing agreements, where the government paid for a share of critical stages, in return for getting certain rights if the drugs were successful.
"Government efficiency" isn't the slur you seem to think. Many parts of the government are administered quite efficiently. And many large companies are not.
You're reading a lot that I didn't write into what I did write.
Do you think a government-administrated drug development program would be more efficient than private industry?
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> do you really want to change your economy in such a way?
The dozen or so people it would make sense to ask this question to likely will not read this comment. There hasn't been democratic input to the economic policy of presidential candidates since reagan (bernie sanders aside, barely). We might be highly rated on the international index of democracies or whatever but I can't say I've ever been able to vote about economic topics that mean anything to me.
> We might be highly rated on the international index of democracies or whatever
The USA is not highly rated in the democracy index relative to what should be its peers, always hovering between 20th-30th position depending on the index. Uruguay and Costa Rica ranks higher as a full democracy than the USA.
Note: the headline is not talking about visas. What they're talking about is a status field the student visa sponsor, the university, maintains: "Yes, this person really is a student here". The student visas are contingent on the person continuing ongoing studies—a status the university certifies. The Administration is, as I parse it, fraudulently editing these fields through a backdoor, and then using that "They're not an active student at XYZ" status they forged as the basis for revoking the visas.
TFA:
> Samah Sisay of the Center for Constitutional Rights told Zeteo that one’s visa being revoked does not mean that their status would be too. Unlike student visas – which are entry documents that allow someone to enter the country – student statuses are what allow people to stay in the US. To maintain one’s status, a student has to fulfill certain requirements, like being properly enrolled in classes, keeping documents up to date, and following work restrictions.
It’s a seriously dark day in America when our government is weaponizing institutions to target political enemies
For me that’s not the scary part.
It’s the fact that the institutions e.g. Congress, Judiciary are not able or willing to push back. And so we are seeing retribution for First Amendment activities e.g. protests being widespread despite it being clearly unconstitutional.
Project 2025 was right in that if you flood the zone the system won’t be responsive enough to stop you.
> It’s the fact that the institutions e.g. Congress, Judiciary are not able or willing to push back
Even worse, the population at large seems or acts indifferent.
This happened continuously during the Biden administration when they formed an entire network of public-private censorship and liberals told us “freedom of speech does not mean freedom of reach.” You can also reference the entire saga of Russiagate, and litany of lawfare against Trump that was looking for every and any way to jail him and his family.
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anyone cheering this on really has no idea how bad this is. higher education is an area in which the US has had a completely dominant position. the smartest and most driven people from all over the world come here to learn, and start businesses here afterwards. it's a tide that raises all ships. it's not at all a mixed bag like outsourcing or the loss of domestic manufacturing.
that dominance is ending now, because of the cruel whims of one man. none of this is based on rules or process. it's the exact kind of fickle brutality people come to this country to escape. the entire thing is like cutting your nose off to spite your face.
People need to stop blaming "one man." The entire Republican party is complicit in this. Congress has the power to end this. They are controlled by the Republicans. They are not ending this because this is what they want... power without accountability or consequence.
What I want to know is what to do about this?
I'm seriously asking. Protest, write letters, call legislators, donate to legal organizations?
It feels like you can be doing all of this and it's not enough.
Though not terribly impactful, I will not be taking any work trips to the US anymore and will be working on cutting out spending on US tech companies.
All of that is good, its likely not to be enough, especially not in the short term. With luck, enough people doing that builds up and ends the abuses before too long, but history is full of cases where government abuses could not be stopped by peaceful opposition.
Seriously, what is the difference between USA and China?
When china used to disappear people for politics, there was a lot of gloating about how the west is better, America is better.
But is there any difference any longer? America is so close to a fascist single party that is just doing things by dictatorship and zero accountability or transparency. What is the difference?
The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
> The difference is that China has a dictator who needs to continually prove to the Chinese people why they shouldn't overthrow him, while the US has a dictator whose democratic election gives him the permission to do whatever the hell he wants to for 4 years.
Do you remember that China only allowed its dictator to rule for 10 years and that the current dictator/sycophants removed that term limit?
Do you think America is on the same trajectory where the 4 year term limit could be amended via politics and coups? Like the one attempted on Jan 2021?
Why does the Chinese leader need to continually prove himself or else the population will overthrow him? Why do you think the Chinese people are just waiting to press the trigger on revolution? You can get to awful conditions and people still won't revolt.
Some would say that the difference is the USA (for now at least) has a free press?
> Some would say that the difference is the USA (for now at least) has a free press?
Does it? Because the white house has been retaliating against any press that doesn't show them in a good light - like Associated Press.
US engages with its colony in ME, in worst crimes known to international law. Like crimes of aggressive war (in Syria and Yemen), and genocide, aka destruction of a group of people and its society (in Palestine).
Nobody in power in other western countries seems to be batting an eye publicly about it. Yet they bat quite a bit about Uyghur genocide (but not too much either, since EU depends a lot on Chinese trade), etc.
Seems like a free pass, due to wanting that sweet US military HW or "protection", or whatever other sociopathic considerations.
and for how long?
Only true free-speech advocates require students to swear fealty to Israel before getting a student visa in America
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This has literally nothing to do with the article for this post.
Of course it does. The National Post article I linked to is about Mahmoud Khalil, who is indeed mentioned in the Zeteo article.
This is flagged now. I guess some people just don't want to see this kind of news. Or they agree with these tactics.
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Being a student should not make one immune from deportation.
Not doing anything warranting deportation should make one immune from deportation.
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If America really doesn't want all that foreign talent, ... we in other countries surely will not mind.
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