There is no doubt that the swollen government bureaucracies should be pruned – as a forest invaded by vegetation stifling light and life below. Universities have also often lost their way, nourishing ideological extremes and tolerating the open challenge of civil standards. Harvard and other elite institutions allowed left -wing extremism, including the support of Hamas and a disturbing increase in anti -Semitism. Freedom of expression has suffered and responsibility has decreased. These institutions must be held to American laws and ethical standards.
But President Trump’s response – Writing research funding and targeting international students – is not pruned. It sets fire to the whole forest. And in the process, it threatens the very roots of American scientific leadership, economic prosperity and global influence.
The global competitiveness of the United States still depends on its universities – on their openness to talent and their commitment to research. From the micropuce to the biotechnological revolution, many innovations that have defined modern America were born in university laboratories. They were fed by brilliant minds from around the world and supported by public funding. Internet (UCLA), Google (Stanford), GPS (MIT) and mRNM (UPENN) research algorithm is from American universities. The same goes for breakthroughs in clean energy, artificial intelligence and cancer treatments, such as edition of the Crispr gene and immunotherapy. Now, due to Trump’s actions, even research on life cancer is interrupted in the midst of federal subsidies and that the laboratories are closed.
The University of Harvard, long considered a beacon for international academics, had the power to register foreign students revoked. More than $ 2.7 billion in federal research funding has been frozen. The MIT announced discounts of graduate admission and dismissals of research personnel. The system of the University of California is engaged in prosecution to stop the discounts of NIH grants. All this will considerably harm American scientific progress.
The victims are not only university departments – they include tests on cancer, climate research, the development of vaccines and national security projects in quantum and cybersecurity. Hundreds of laboratories across the country signal frozen budgets, canceled contracts and the departure of the best talents. Institutions like Johns Hopkins, Stanford and the University of Michigan have warned that the essential research funded by the federal government in public health, advanced manufacturing and clean energy was now in danger.
Although a federal judge has temporarily blocked the administration’s attempt to strip Harvard of his power to register international students, damage is already caused. Legal stay does not defeat the scary effect on global talents or the disruption of research programs already underway. Uncertainty alone has weakened America’s position as a global destination for advanced innovation.
This drop is particularly tragic given the historical achievements of American research institutions. Public investments in university sciences have given us not only medical miracles and digital revolutions, but entire industries. Funding for NIH and NSF has helped generate biotechnology, clean technology and nanotechnologies. Darpa’s subsidies gave us a GPS and the start of the Internet. These are the roots of the American economy of innovation. Softing them is like tearing off the basics of a half-construction skyscraper.
And it is not only the financing of the research which is attacked – it is the people who give life to this research. For decades, the United States appreciated the biggest free lunch in the history of education and entrepreneurship: the smartest students in India, China and around the world came to study here. They haven’t just learned. They stayed. They built businesses. They created jobs.
Immigrants played a main role in almost all the American successes of the last half century. More than half of the Silicon Valley startups were founded by immigrants. A 2022 report of the National Foundation for American Policy revealed that 55% of American unicorn startups – which estimated at more than a billion dollars – were launched by immigrants. This list includes companies like Tesla, Google, Intel, Paypal, Moderna and Zoom.
In science and medicine, the model is the same. Researchers born abroad are disproportionately represented among the winners of the Nobel Prize in the United States, among teachers of major universities and among the inventors of patents filed by the best American institutions. More than 75% of the patents of American research universities lists at least one inventor born abroad.
And yet, the Trump administration has done everything possible to block these same contributors. During the pandemic, he tried to revoke the visas of international students who take online courses. Visas treatment delays have become routine. Highly qualified immigrants, including doctoral students and post-doctoral students, are now faced with long expectations, opaque rules and increasing uncertainty. The result? A slow cerebral leak has become a stampede. Talented researchers go instead of Europe, Canada and Australia.
I warned of this scenario in my book The immigrant exodus More than a decade ago. At the time, it was an edifying story. Today is a reality in progress. We are witnessing a deliberate dismantling of the American innovation ecosystem – a visa and a research subsidy at a time.
To be clear, not all criticisms of universities are unjustified. There is a bloating. There is waste. And certain institutions have not respected the principles of academic neutrality. But that does not justify blind destruction. There is a difference between pruning of a tree and burning the orchard.
Even from a purely economic point of view, these policies are indefensible. International students alone Contribute more than $ 40 billion a year to the US economy. They pay full tuition fees. They rent accommodation. They spend in their local communities. Many become entrepreneurs, taxpayers and job creators. Meanwhile, research funding supports hundreds of thousands of jobs in each state. It feeds startups, anchors regional economies and leads the industries of tomorrow. Weakening this foundation does not only harm universities – it weakens America.
The cruel irony is that these policies will harm the people that Trump claims to defend: the Americans who work. When universities lose research subsidies, they cut teachers and staff. When international students go elsewhere, local businesses – from cafes to apartments – take it. When the breakthroughs are delayed or lost, America loses its competitive advantage – and the jobs and industries that follow.
China does not need to exceed America to win the innovation race. You just have to see the United States unravel its own lead. And that’s exactly what’s going on.
However, I have not lost hope.
The United States has already tripped before and has corrected. The backlash of these policies increases. Universities retaliate. Business leaders are expressed. The courts intervene. I hope it is only another Trumpian surpassing – too bad, yes, but ultimately reversible.
The strength of America has always come from its opening: new people, daring ideas and investment in the future. Immigrants and research subsidies have built the Internet, healed the diseases and launched the industries that feed our economy today. If we remember that – and act on it – it will not be the beginning of the decline of America, but a painful detour on the renewal road.
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