Vannevar Bush, the godfather of postwar US government scientific research policy, called basic research the “pacemaker of technological progress”. Today, Trump’s budget office has proposed a rule letting political appointees review and terminate ongoing grants that do not “advance the president’s priorities,” and a White House report argues for shrinking universities’ role and deprioritising life sciences.

The administration already halted $3bn of National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health grants in computing, neuroscience and cancer biology, and federal science agencies lost 20 per cent of their staff in 2025. Congress blocked earlier plans to cut more than a third of non‑defence R&D, but the pressure continues.

Cutting public research funding is economically short‑sighted; governments can make long‑term bets the private sector cannot. If the US squanders its advantage, China is ready to fill the gap. While the White House touts AI, fusion and quantum tech, it has not committed comparable funding, and politicising grant decisions risks tying scientific progress to election cycles.