St. Peter, MN- With the elimination of the Chinese Language program at Gustavus Adolphus the Trump administration has landed on new blow in the trade war against China. Insiders in the White House say that it is part of a larger strategy to stop China’s increasing power by simply denying its relevancy. “China is clearly becoming the key player in global trade and policy making. We figured the best way to address the issue is by ignoring it, pretending that they don’t matter,” said one staffer close to the President who wished to remain anonymous.

The Gustavus administration was only too happy to comply. A statement from the provost’s office cited budget cuts as the main motivation for the decision, but added “we are so grateful that Trump told us to get rid of it. This way there’s less guilt over gutting educational pieces of this educational institution. If we’re being honest the only people donating money are STEM majors, so if it doesn’t deal with numbers it’s going to be cut eventually. Hopefully Trump starts a trade war with philosophers, or artists next, that would be convenient for us.”

Mikks Maddelson was in Chinese 101 when this announcement was made by the school.
“Goddammit, now I’ll never be able to figure out how to translate the theme song to Sagwa the Chinese Siamese Cat. What are they saying! ‘Happn Yo, Happon Yo, Sagwa Chigawa Happon Yo!’ What does that mean! I was so close to figuring it out. Thanks Obama.”

With China rising as a global power, and ties both competition between the two countries growing ever stronger, some see it as a strange move to eliminate what is likely to become an important tool to connect the cultures. “If China is ‘the enemy’ as Trump suggests,” Poli Sci major Kelsey Beeker explains “then I would direct him to when Green Day pointed out in the song ‘Know Your Enemy’ that
you ‘gotta know the enemy (ooah).’ Therefore eliminating the way to know your enemy goes against this sound political advice.”

The Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs agreed to sit down with the Fourth Crown for an
exclusive interview. Unfortunately no one on staff knows any Chinese.