How the first 30 days went and what is the next step

Following the Second World War, American leaders adopted the idea that scientific progress is an “essential key to our security as a nation, our best health, more jobs, a higher standard of living and our cultural progress”. And during the following eight decades, government representatives on both sides of the political aisle agreed to invest in American science. Just a month later The second administration of republican president Donald TrumpScientists fear that this longtime consensus are disintegrating.

Do the Trump team’s actions affect your research? How to contact nature

Acting with unprecedented speed, the administration has dismissed thousands of employees in American scientific agencies and Announced reforms of research research standards This could considerably reduce federal financial support for science. Cups are part of a greater effort to radically reduce government spending and reduce their workforce.

Although the American courts intervened in some cases, the Republicans in the two chambers of the US Congress – who largely blocked Trump’s efforts to reduce scientific funding during his first mandate as president from 2017 to 2021 – mainly fell into line in accordance with the agenda of Trump 2.0. For many researchers, this first month reports a realignment of priorities that could affect science and society for decades to come.

These actions are all “unprecedented”, explains Harold Varmus, former director of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) who is now a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. “No one has ever seen a (presidential) transition in which one of the most precious parties of our government company is removed.”

Trump’s White House did not respond to NatureComment request.

Here, Nature Odder the sumptuous actions of the Trump team on science so far (scrolling down to see the chronology scientific impacts: a month of Trump 2.0 ”) and speaks to the political observers of the next step .

Fast and Furious

The overhaul of American science began in the hours following the inauguration of Trump on January 20, when He signed dozens of decreeswhich are presidential directives on how the government should operate in existing laws.

Some of these orders had been planned, in particular Draw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement to curb global climate and put an end to the nation belonging to the World Health Organization. Others have had surprising and immediate training effects through the scientific community.

A The order wrongly attempted to define only two biological sexesMen and women, and prohibits federal actions “which promote or otherwise instill gender ideology”. Biomedical research agencies such as US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rushed to respond, among other things, by deleting the data sets from their websites and Draw the submissions of manuscripts from scientific journals To purge terms, including “genre” and “transgender”.

Another executive decree Prohibit what Trump called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs, according to the name” diversity, equity and inclusion “(DEI)”. Any federal employee who has not reported his colleagues defying DEI orders would be confronted with “negative consequences”, according to an email sent to government employees. To many disma scientistsY, agencies have started to end the DEI programs, including environmental justice efforts, which are programs to protect low -income communities vulnerable to pollution and climate change. Even some scientific societies And Private research organizations The mentions of their websites. In One of Trump’s ordersHe called for the investigation into foundations, non -profit organizations and other private entities which are not in line.

On January 27, just a week before the new administration, the Trump budget office froze all federal subsidies and loans, saying that it had to review public spending to ensure that it was aligning with the decrees . Chaos broke out as an agenciesIncluding the NIH and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) – both the main donors of the fundamental sciences – have interrupted subsidy payments, canceled examination panels for research funding and pause communications . A federal judge temporarily blocked the order, but the disturbances and confusion continue.

The main researchers who direct research teams suffer in this environment, explains a scientist from the university who has requested anonymity because their research is funded by several American agencies. “Everything is on you to manage your subsidies and your team,” they say, adding that “there is a lot of fear that people would not mean or do the bad thing” and therefore lose financial support for their work . “It’s completely chaotic; I lose sleep.

Slash and burn

Trump’s unprecedented directives landed As a partnership with the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk Prospered. The pair works together to reduce federal spending and Dismantle agencies such as the American agency for international developmentwhich finances the research, prevention and prevention of global diseases.

To achieve this objective, the Trump administration – working by the American department of government efficiency, which Musk would have advised – quickly moved Demoralize and interrupt federal workforceIncluding around 280,000 scientists and engineers. Initially, an email offer of January 30 to all federal employees asked them to “pass lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector”; About 75,000 employees subsequently resigned, on the promise to keep their salary until September. And last week, layoffs started for US government probation employees – those who have generally hired their position in the past two years, which means that researchers at the start of their career were particularly affected.

“I cannot even transmit how random and cruel the dismissals are,” said a NIH researcher who lost members of their laboratory in job cuts and asked for anonymity because they were not Not allowed to speak with the press. E -mails inform the workers that they were abandoned would have given a general reason for poor performance for dismissal – even to those whose performance was assessed “exceptional” by their supervisors. “They took some of the best and brightest people who have just joined the government and dismissed them,” said the researcher.