By Mel Gurtov
Once Upon a Time
There was a time not too long ago when American scientists and American research facilities were the envy of the world. In those days, our scientists typically swept Nobel and other international prizes. Not anymore; the Trump administration’s drastic cuts in scientific personnel and budgets will “essentially end America’s longstanding role as the world leader in science and innovation,” said Toby Smith, senior vice president for government relations and public policy at the Association of American Universities.
The results are clear: As two economists recently wrote, in cutting-edge scientific research, whereas in 2017 the US led China in eight categories, by 2023, it led in only one (quantum computing).
We sometimes forget how important government-supported scientific research at university and other laboratories is in ordinary life. One study mentions as examples, “lifesaving medicine, commercial agriculture, and virtual communication. . . . Of the 356 new drugs approved over the past decade, 354 received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest supporter of biomedical research.”
The smartphone, computers, and highways are other examples. The US economy greatly benefits. As Karin Fischer writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “A paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas found that government spending on research and development has spurred at least a fifth of U.S. productivity growth since World War II.” Yes, government-supported classified research underpins the military-industrial complex. Such spending contrasts with open, scientist-determined research in the public interest, with the government’s role that of a distant funder.
Deep Cuts, Politically Driven
The Trump administration has fundamentally changed independent research. It has become the “minder” of research programs in and outside government, much like a ministry in an authoritarian country. It is now impossible to get federal funding that supports research related to DEI, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate change. Mere mention of those topics in National Science Foundation grant applications, over which DOGE presides, has ruled them out.
The Guardian has also found that “at least 1,653 active NSF research grants authorized on their merits have so far been abruptly cancelled.” Scientists who don’t agree with Trump’s political agenda are being forced out—at Health and Human Services, for instance, where RFK Jr. has fired immunization scientists who disagree with his vaccination stance. The science program at the Environmental Protection Agency has just been dismantled.
Leadership of key public health agencies, such as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and Food and Drug Administration, is in the hands of medical quacks. Karin Fischer, an educational researcher, reports further: “The administration said it would stop underwriting scientific collaboration with overseas partners, and stepped up scrutiny of research contracts and other funds to colleges from foreign sources.”
Making these determinations is a one-way street: Trump isn’t negotiating new terms of collaboration, he’s ordering them. For instance: Trump has ordered the US Department of Agriculture to remove references to the climate crisis from its website; blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from publishing scientific information on the threat of bird flu to humans; fired senior leaders at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and cut about 1,000 jobs, with the Texas flood disaster one consequence; fired around 800 people at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, putting critical weather forecasting in a bind; and greatly reduced funds for investment in low-carbon technologies, despite the fact that those funds go overwhelmingly to Republican districts.
Anti-Science, Anti-Earth
The Guardian offers an example of what happens to politically unacceptable research under Trump: Although Congress mandates that climate assessments be prepared every four years, the Trump administration has eliminated the online portal for the reports, according to The Guardian, which also notes that researchers who were working on the next report, due around 2027, have been dismissed. The Guardian was able to provide a copy of the latest assessment, conducted in 2023. It warns that the “effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States.” “Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities,” the assessment continues, “the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow.” Such a conclusion is an anathema to a regime that is dedicated to the interests of the fossil fuel industry.
Thanks largely to Trump, America’s scientific talent is now for sale. France, Japan, Australia, and the Netherlands are among the countries that are hiring away US scientists. China has succeeded in luring back many scientists in the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) who had hoped for careers in the US. Those students and researchers still in the US are now regarded, not as assets but as political suspects.
What we are witnessing, in short, is an anti-science, anti-intellectual cleansing that will cause immense harm to public health, the economy, education, and America’s reputation.
Mel Gurtov, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.
