Donald Trump Stimulates The Globalization Of Scientific Excellence
By
Leonard Zwelling
I have been lucky enough to have lived through an amazing transformation in the manner in which science is done in the United States.
It all began under President Franklin Roosevelt with his science adviser Vannevar Bush’s report called “Science, The Endless Frontier” and the uniquely American post-WWII investment in basic science excellence which has yielded countless Nobel Prizes, landing on the moon, and CRISPR along with thousands of other innovations that have advanced basic knowledge with numerous practical, life-changing, and life-saving applications.
Much of this was done through federal funding of basic research. I was the recipient of a lot of that money, first working in the intramural program of the NIH for nine years, and then as a federal grantee at MD Anderson for at least 20 more, both as a principal investigator funding my own lab, and as a vice president in charge of two cores on the Cancer Center Support Grant.
This was the system that not only grew great science, but attracted people from all over the world to come to the United States to learn what we were doing. Some stayed and contributed to our own scientific projects. Some returned home and grew the science in their home country. Still, up until recently, everyone in the world who wanted to do great science, came to the United States to learn how to do just that.
This title is a little tongue in cheek, but that doesn’t make it wrong. As this article from The New York Times on June 4 by Kate Zernicke illustrates, the many Trump-erected barriers to access for training in science for foreigners has stimulated interest among these potential contributors to American science from off-shore to pursue their passions in other countries. These other countries are freeing large amounts of cash to woo scientists from America, too. Some of our leaders in science are going abroad to work. Even more are thinking about it.
The key to all of this is the fact that so many of the people working in American laboratories are foreigners. Not only do they come here to learn, we depend upon their work ethic to staff the research projects emanating from these laboratories. To be blunt, without the Chinese workers in the American labs, American science stops. If Mr. Trump blocks their visas or those of workers from India, Europe, or the rest of Asia, don’t be surprised to see labs close and move off shore where they can have access to new money and more non-American workers.
Mr. Trump does not understand that commerce in this world has become globalized and none of the tinkering with the tariffs that he is doing now will change the fact that most manufacturing will be done abroad where labor is cheaper. He will not bring back manufacturing to the United States because no one could afford the resultant products made with higher paid American labor. Commerce is globalized to stay.
Science is moving in the same direction. Until recently, scientific excellence resided predominantly in the United States, but this can change. If the primary source of labor for research (foreign students) is cut off, not to mention the end of that labor deciding to stay and advance our domestic scientific agenda, our leadership in science may be over.
If Mr. Trump is so xenophobic that he allows the fear of foreigners by his MAGA followers to alter his science policy, all of science will pay the price. And that’s what seems to be happening.
Among all the stupid things Trump is doing, closing the door to foreign scientists may be the stupidest.
