Luxury retailers warn Trump ban on foreign students could tank sales

Daily Mail​

6 hours ago

Luxury retailers in Boston have warned that Donald Trump 's crackdown on international student visas threatens to destroy their most lucrative customer base and possibly tank sales of fine jewelry, Maseratis and $28,000-a-month apartments. Wealthy international students who think nothing of dropping thousands on flashy cars and designer jewelry could soon be gone, as reported by the Boston Globe. The wealthiest among the 82,000 international students pump a staggering $4 billion into Massachusetts annually. During Chinese New Year this January, luxury jeweler Bulgari on Newbury Street saw business boom.
Students from Shanghai and Chengdu flocked to buy diamond-and-gemstone 'Serpenti' collection pieces starting at $3,300 for dainty viper earrings. 'If something is trending or popular, many of the international students want it,' Michelle Jiang, former client advisor at Burberry , Barney's, and Chanel in Boston told the Globe. 'They don't think much of it before buying.' The massive spending is spread across Boston - including fleets of Maseratis parked along Commonwealth Avenue.
Students sport $1,000 Balenciaga sneakers to class, before dining at the city's most exclusive restaurants including Yvonne's, Trade, and Contessa. Foreign families also routinely purchase million-dollar condos for their children, only to abandon them completely when studies end. Brett DeRocker, partner at First Boston Realty, revealed that two-thirds of his high-end rental properties at the Four Seasons, Ritz-Carlton, and One Dalton are rented to international students. Working professionals occupy apartments starting at $2,700.
But the $28,000-a-month penthouse at the top of his portfolio houses a single family with multiple children studying locally. 'When you all of a sudden start to think about a force of individuals who fuel the housing market with no way to replace them, what happens?' DeRocker told the outlet. 'Will there be a pullback in home values? Will there be a surplus in inventory?' Leonardo Solís once owned seven apartment buildings catering to foreign students.
He hosted 100 students annually at his peak, but now his client list from abroad has plummeted to just five. 'Boston has always been a beacon for international students with money,' Solis told the outlet. 'But that wealthy population of international students just doesn't seem to be coming as they used to, and I don't know if they are ever going to come back.' The luxury car market has also been impacted as Trump's student visa crackdown reaches boiling point.
At Boston Foreign Motors, owner Milad Farahani has watched international students create a 'never-ending line of clients' seeking luxury cars for 20 years. Students, especially from Malaysia, refer him from friend to friend. They sell cars back to him in May and he flips them to new buyers in fall. Offers are typically all-cash, even for six-figure vehicles. 'We do think it could affect things to not have those people come into the country or into Boston,' Farahani told the outlet.
The impact extends beyond luxury goods to the restaurant business. Allston has transformed into an unofficial Koreatown over the past decade with hot pot, fried chicken, and boba spots. When trendy boba chain HeyTea -which operates 3,000 locations in China - opened on Harvard Avenue in January students from China lined up around the block. 'They would both have a lot less customers and revenue if these mandates go into effect,' Alex Cornacchini, executive director of Allston Village Main Streets warned. High-end boutiques are also expecting business to crash.
Foreign students routinely purchase Dior saddle bags and Le Labo perfume in Boston because they're cheaper than back home, a luxury retail executive told the outlet. 'A good portion of the stability in luxury retail in Boston is sustained with the consistency of the student population,' the executive said. 'It's like the tide. You know it's going to come in at this time, and go out at this time. If we were to start to see a cap on how many international students are coming from any university, that is going to have severe repercussions.' This comes after Trump banned foreign nationals from studying at Harvard University as he continues to clash with the Ivy League institution.
The president issued an executive order in early June entitled Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University, which suspends the school's student visa program - calling it a 'privilege granted by our government, not a guarantee.' He also doubled down on his claims that the school violated federal law and argued it is important to limit international students for national security reasons on the same day he restricted travel from a dozen countries. 'The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long warned that foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions and spread false information for political or other reasons,' the executive order states.
'Our adversaries, including the People's Republic of China try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.' Harvard has nearly 6,800 international students, making up more than 27 percent of its enrollment in the past academic year, according to the BBC. About one-third of those international students are from China, and Trump has previously accused the Ivy League school of 'coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,' claims he reiterated in the executive order. Trump further said that Harvard failed 'to identify and address misconduct by those foreign students' amid his crackdown on universities that allowed antisemitic protests on campus during the war in Gaza.