The End of American Dominance

This Is How We Will Lose.

What if we’d told Pentagon researchers in the 1970s that their satellite navigation system was too expensive and impractical for anything beyond military use? We would have lost the foundation for a $4 trillion location-based economy - from ride-sharing to precision agriculture to emergency services - all built on GPS technology that may have appeared “pointless” to some people at the time.

Scientists and engineers ask questions that lead to discoveries we can’t yet imagine, sometimes even trillion-dollar breakthroughs. And yet today, we're systematically undercutting their work. As we defund labs and institutions across the U.S., we risk handing future industries - and the talent that creates them - to global competitors. Every PhD student who leaves for better opportunities abroad may be taking tomorrow’s breakthroughs with them.

The Crisis Unfolding Now

As our leaders debate the value of science funding, the research enterprise that built American prosperity is unraveling in real time.

Today, the National Science Foundation is awarding new grants at the slowest pace in at least 35 years - more than $1 billion below the 10-year average. The agency has terminated over 1,425 active grants worth roughly $1.5 billion.

Reductions extend across the board—from engineering to climate science to core disciplines like chemistry and physics, where funding has dropped by two-thirds this year. Graduate research fellowships have been cut in half, from over 2,000 to just 1,000.

The chaos has only intensified. Just last week, more than 1,800 NSF employees learned they were being abruptly evicted from the National Science Foundation headquarters building, with no prior notification. Workers protested outside, chanting “We won't go!” as the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would take over the building.

And the situation only appears to be getting worse. The proposed 2026 federal budget from President Trump includes a 50% cut to the National Science Foundation and a 37% cut to the National Institutes of Health - a move that would devastate the backbone of American science.

The human cost is immediate. A recent Nature poll reported that 75% of scientists are considering leaving the country. Among early-career researchers, the number rises to 79%. These aren’t just departures—they’re the loss of potential Nobel laureates, startup founders, biotech innovators, and future faculty who would train the next generation of leaders in research and innovation.

The Competition Isn't Waiting

As America retreats, China invests. Last year, Bejing announced a $52 billion investment in research and development, marking a 10% increase over the previous year - the largest percentage increase of any major spending area.

U.S. R&D spending fell by 2.7% in 2024, including an 11.3% drop in non-defense R&D. At the same time, China now accounts for 22% of global R&D spending and boasts 24 science and technology clusters, compared to America’s 21.

That investment is already paying off. Chinese pharmaceutical companies grew from less than 5% of large global transactions in 2020 to nearly 30% in 2024. In electric vehicles, Chinese firms captured 52% of their domestic market and 17% of the global market outside of the country. These are not accidents – they are the predictable results of sustained investment in the science that makes these industries possible.

Meanwhile, other nations are actively recruiting our scientists. France launched a “Safe Place for Science” initiative aimed at American researchers. The European Research Council has doubled relocation funding to €2 million per scientist. Thirteen European research ministers recently called on the EU to “welcome brilliant talents from abroad who might suffer from research interference and brutal funding cuts.”

The Economic Stakes

These cuts aren’t just bad science policy, but they’re bad economics. The current proposals would cost the U.S. economy an estimated $10 billion annually.

In fact, every dollar the government invests in non-defense research and development (R&D) returns an estimated $1.40 to $2.10 in economic output. Since World War II, such funding has driven roughly 20% of U.S. productivity growth. Many of today’s most lucrative technologies from touchscreen technology to MRI scanners began as government-funded initiatives. In medicine alone, around 90% of FDA-approved drugs began with NIH-supported basic research.

The pattern is clear: curiosity-driven science leads to unanticipated breakthroughs that create entirely new markets. Quantum computing came from 40 years of fundamental physics research. The Human Genome Project enabled a biotechnology revolution worth hundreds of billions. Even the algorithms behind today’s AI stem from theoretical computer science research funded decades ago.

Yet despite this track record, federal R&D spending has dropped from 1.9% of GDP in 1964 to just 0.7% in 2021, ranking the U.S. 12th globally. We’re not only trailing our competitors, we’re spending less than we did during the space race that established American technological dominance in the first place.

The Choice Before Us

We stand at an inflection point. We can continue cutting science funding, while our competitors invest, watching the next generation of researchers and industries migrate elsewhere. Or we can remember that America built its booming economy by betting on science before we knew where it would lead.

The researchers leaving for Europe and Asia aren’t just taking expertise, but also the discoveries that could have built American companies, created American jobs, and launched American industries.

The jobs of 2035 don’t exist yet. But the countries that will create them are making their choices right now. The question isn’t whether we can afford to invest in science - it’s whether we can afford to let others write the future while we watch from the sidelines.

America didn’t become a superpower by playing it safe. We did it by funding the impossible, supporting the impractical, and believing that today’s basic research would become tomorrow’s transformative technology. That choice made us the most innovative, most prosperous nation in history.

We can make that choice again. But only if we act now, before our competitors claim the next generation of talent, discovery, and industry.