Trump Passes The Baton Of Technological Leadership & Innovation To China
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Now Trump is proposing to dismantle or degrade virtually every piece of the innovation system, at precisely the time that China is gearing up to develop preeminence in the critical technologies of the coming generation or two. First, Trump’s budget would eliminate ARPA-E and would slash federal outlays on biomedical research as well, cutting the annual budget for the National Institutes of Health from around $30 billion to $25 billion. The budget for the Department of Education is also sharply reduced, by around 13 percent, or $9 billion.
Second, Trump has begun to shut down the scientific capacity of US agencies to deal with environmental science and environmental crises such as climate change and pollution. Federal websites have gone silent on climate science; online data sets that were once available to the scientific community are being withdrawn; agencies have been put on warning against discussing climate change; and, of course, the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency is slashed to the core, down by around 31 percent, including a cut, by around half, of the Office of Research and Development. All of this attack on federally supported R&D is of course gravely compounded by Trump’s owned antiscience rhetoric.
Third, Trump’s travel bans and general hostility to international partnerships and cooperation is already putting a severe chill on global scientific cooperation. It is no accident that American universities have lined up against the travel bans and have been plaintiffs to prevent their implementation. What is so remarkable about all of this is that Trump is degrading America’s innovation system just as China is taking remarkably bold steps to upgrade its own innovation system and its leadership in cutting-edge technologies. China’s rate of patenting has soared in recent years, nearly catching up with the rate of US patent applications, and is on a path to overtake the United States in the near future. China is now producing more science and engineering PhDs than the United States. Yet perhaps most striking is China’s explicit commitment to technological advances in 10 critical sectors in the coming decade, part of a newly announced “Made in China 2025” program, including advanced information technology, new energy vehicles, including electric vehicles, low-carbon energy, and advanced medical sciences, among others.
America First is really Billionaires First and America last. The Trump-Koch-Republican alliance will gut America’s capacity to innovate if it gets its way. It is not surprising that a President with such contempt for the truth displays such contempt for science. Yet the rest of us should recognize that more fossil fuels, and yet another round of tax cuts for the rich, will not advance America’s well-being. It is especially urgent for us as citizens to resist Trump’s war on science.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2017/03/26/trump-passes-baton-technological-leadership-china/iMrKHFPIyxhMju8nw0SfIL/story.html
