The New York Times, May 2, 2025 (with William J. Broad, Kenneth Chang, and Katrina Miller)
President Trump’s proposed budget in the next fiscal year calls for firm support of artificial intelligence and quantum research but makes large cuts to many other parts of the sprawling enterprise of scientific research funded by the federal government.
Only Congress has the power to enact such proposals, but if it does in this case, “the consequences for the future of our nation will be catastrophic,” said Sudip Parikh, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the world’s largest scientific societies. “The United States will no longer be in the global race” for leadership in research and development, he added. “We will have lost it.”
Figures published by the society show that China has greatly increased its support for the scientific enterprise in the past two decades. As of 2023, the most recent year available for comparisons, China’s investment was close to matching the United States.
One of Mr. Trump’s biggest reductions would be a 55.8 percent cut from the budget of the National Science Foundation, which sponsors much of the nation’s most basic research from which many applied scientific discoveries spring. It would fall to $3.9 billion from $8.8 billion.
Smaller scientific agencies would also lose much of their funding, such as the U.S. Geological Survey, which would have its budget fall to about $800 million from $1.5 billion, according to the association’s figures.
And the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is responsible for setting standards of measurement used by scientists worldwide, would need to work with $830 million after previously being appropriated $1.16 billion, the association said.
The proposed cuts may be compounded by new policies to reduce payments that go to the shared overhead costs at universities, such as heat, technical support and building maintenance. The N.S.F. announced on Friday that, starting next week, it will only allow 15 percent of grant money to cover so-called indirect costs. Other agencies are reportedly making similar cuts to their indirect cost rate.
The new rate is so low that scientists fear that it will become impossible to carry forward their work.
“Trump’s mission to destroy U.S. science research continues,” Matthew Green, a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on Bluesky on Friday.
The Democrats on the Science Committee in the House of Representatives warned about the effects of such cuts on the nation’s “economic and national security future.”
“The president obviously doesn’t understand that without robust American science, America will lose — plain and simple,” Zoe Lofgren, the California representative who is the ranking Democrat on the committee, said in a statement.
“For decades,” Ms. Lofgren continued, “we have worked on a bipartisan basis to strengthen our competitiveness and make the research ecosystem here in the United States the envy of the world. We succeeded in that. Now Donald Trump is rapidly destroying that foundation in a matter of months.”
According to a White House summary document, Mr. Trump’s proposed budget “maintains funding for research in artificial intelligence and quantum information science at key agencies, to ensure the United States remains on the cutting edge of these critical technologies’ development and responsible use.”
Victoria LaCivita, a spokeswoman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, defended the overall science budget, saying in a statement that the administration was “refocusing investments in the priority areas that America must continue to lead in, securing our standing as a global tech leader and ending woke science spending.”
That is the administration’s code word for both climate programs and ones seeking to encourage diversity, equity and inclusion.
Ms. LaCivita added: “President Trump recognizes that artificial intelligence, quantum computing and nuclear energy are amongst the most important technologies of our lifetime. They are crucial to maintaining our economic and national security.”
The proposed budget follows months of efforts by the Trump administration to trim and reshape the U.S. scientific enterprise through executive orders and agency mandates.
Words related to “woke” efforts began disappearing from federal science websites. The agencies have already shrunk after some recent hires were laid off and other employees accepted early retirement and buyout offers. Multiple freezes to new and existing awards have occurred at the National Science Foundation, which began canceling grants last month.
Copyright 2025 The New York Times Company. Reprinted with permission.