Source: “American is in Danger of Experiencing an Academic Brain Drain,” The Economist, May 21, 2025.
Commentary: China and the European Union invest more in research than the United States, and, with President Trump’s cuts to federal research funding, the gap is set to grow. In 2023, the United States invested about $175 billion in research conducted at government institutions and universities. That same year, the EU invested about $180 billion, and China about $200 billion. But with Trump’s $40 billion of proposed budget cuts to federally funded research (including cuts to the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Centers for Disease Control), that gap may well grow. Analysts estimate that cuts of this size could result in the loss of 80,000 American research jobs. Other countries may benefit from the cuts, including China, which is intensifying its efforts to attract Chinese-born scientists from the United States. In the first quarter of 2025, applications by American-based researchers for jobs in China increased by 20 percent compared to last year.
