Although international students are not eligible to vote, they have plenty to say about this year’s American presidential election. We asked several students for their perspectives of the election in general, the presidential debates, and how they view the Trump and Clinton campaigns. Here’s a sampling:
Rafael Muchanga, Jr. ’18
Home country: Mozambique
Major: chemical engineering
“The nominating conventions here provide a great opportunity for voters to get to know each candidate and make a responsible decision. I imagine the U.S. being one of the most powerful countries in the world, and every decision they make affects the rest of the world. If the U.S. is governed by someone with Machiavelli’s sort of power, it will screw up the rest of the world.”
Yashika Patil ’17
Home country: India
Major: business
“I was shocked to learn the number of people who actually support Donald Trump. I understand that people don’t trust Hillary [Clinton], but I don’t think it is a valid enough reason to support someone so vapid, uninformed, and a tyrant.”
Ruairi Conway ’17
Home country: Ireland
Major: digital media studies
“If I had the right to vote, I would go for Hillary [Clinton]. I know a lot of people don’t trust her, but compared to Trump, she has more specific policies in mind. I think people who vote for Trump vote for his promise of big changes. I can see why people would rather vote for radical change when they’re not happy. But this is not the election to do that.”
Edgar Yau ’20, undecided major from Hong Kong
“As an outsider, I think Trump shouldn’t be representing the United States because his views of race, education, and wealth are very distorted. As a U.S. president, what he says embodies the whole country, so this person has to show a certain level of knowledge, but apparently he does not.
“Most of my peers are very liberal so they like Democratic Party more. Even though Hillary [Clinton] is a little bit shady and disingenuous, she shows more caring for the people and the country, and her policies are more progressive.”
Zeqing (Kate) Zheng ’17
Home country: China
Majors: international relations; psychology
“Donald Trump pronounced ‘China’ as ‘Gina’ so many times at the first presidential debate. It is understandable that Trump wants to project an image of China as a threat to the U.S. But at the same time, a lot of the evidence he used to portray China as the big, bad guy is factually incorrect. His false accusations and descriptions are disrespectful to the country itself.”
Woo Tag Kim ’19
Home country: South Korea
Major: business
“Trump’s foreign policies are really unacceptable to me. We currently have U.S. soldiers based in South Korea to balance the military power from North Korea. If Trump is elected, I’m afraid that the whole U.S. Army will be withdrawn, which does no good to either of us.”
