The Department of Education released a breathless report on Wednesday detailing how many colleges and universities receive foreign money, “documenting over 8,300 transactions worth more than $5.2 billion in reportable foreign gifts and contracts.” There’s even an online portal where you can go see how all these universities nefariously enter into agreements with suspicious foreigners.

Let’s check in with Education Secretary Linda McMahon to learn more about this, shall we?

“Thanks to the Trump Administration's new accountability portal, the American people have unprecedented visibility into the foreign dollars flowing into our colleges and universities—including funding from countries and entities that are involved in activities that threaten America’s national security.”

It isn’t clear exactly which countries McMahon is bloviating about here, but the countries highlighted in her news release and the portal are Qatar, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and Saudi Arabia.

Which of these countries, exactly, are “involved in activities that threaten America’s national security”? Have the United Kingdom and Japan been saber-rattling against us?

Qatar tops the list as far as actual dollars, with the country spending $1.1 billion with American universities in 2025. That’s meant to sound super-startling, but that number is high in part because the Qatari government officially sponsors an education initiative in the United States, and both Cornell and Carnegie Mellon—two of the universities the Trump administration is howling about the loudest—have operations in Qatar, so of course there is money going back and forth.

The problem with the Education Department’s online portal is that it collapses all sorts of activities, like tuition reimbursement and contracts for campuses abroad, into one scary glob of undifferentiated money. That allows the administration to imply that countries are just showering schools with billions for funsies and influence rather than paying for educational services rendered.

Hyping Qatar’s involvement here is especially hilarious given that Qatar gave Trump a $400 million plane and, in return, got a declaration that the U.S. would “regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty, or critical infrastructure of the State of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States” and that “the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures—including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military—to defend the interests of the United States and of the State of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”

Yes, that’s President Trump just single-handedly promising NATO-level support to Qatar after getting a free plane.

Scaremongering about Saudi Arabia is ridiculous as well, given that the Trump Organization is doing business there, and Trump netted about $21 million in 2024 to slap his name on various projects. There’s also LIV Golf, which is backed by the Saudi government and just so happens to have a deal with Trump to host tournaments at Trump-owned properties.

And let’s not forget that Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner got a cool $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund for his private equity firm. And we also can’t overlook the impressive achievements in crypto grifting that the Trump family businesses are currently engaged in.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the national security adviser for the United Arab Emirates, deputy ruler of Abu Dhabi, and brother of the president of the UAE, just spent $500 million to buy a stake in World Liberty Financial, a deal that was very cool and good for the Trump family but doesn’t seem to make much financial sense on the UAE side of things.

Well, until you realize it’s $500 million to curry favor with Trump, not to actually make money on whatever shoddy crypto scam the Trump sons are hawking these days.

Trump desperately wants to push nativist scaremongering about how dirty foreigners and dirty money are invading our pristine American universities, but it’s pretty hard to do when Trump himself will take cash from pretty much anyone. Being lectured about foreign influence by the most bribeable president in U.S. history is a joke.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos