www.scientificamerican.com
February 20, 20258 min readScience under Siege during Trumps First 30 DaysThe Trump administration has acted fast to attack science with a range of funding and policy tacticsU.S. President Donald Trump looks at an executive order on halting federal funds for schools and universities that impose coronavirus vaccine mandates before signing in the Oval Office of the White House on February 14, 2025. Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesIn the wake of the Second World War, US leaders adopted the view that scientific progress is an essential key to our security as a nation, to our better health, to more jobs, to a higher standard of living, and to our cultural progress. And for the next eight decades, government officials on both sides of the political aisle agreed to invest in US science. Just one month into the second administration of Republican President Donald Trump, scientists fear that that long-time consensus is disintegrating.Acting with unprecedented speed, the administration has laid off thousands of employees at US science agencies and announced reforms to research-grant standards that could drastically reduce federal financial support for science. The cuts form part of a larger effort to radically reduce the governments spending and downsize its workforce.Although US courts have intervened in some cases, Republicans in both chambers of the US Congress which largely blocked Trumps efforts to cut science funding during his first term as president from 2017 to 2021 have mostly fallen in line with the agenda for Trump 2.0. For many researchers, this first month signals a realignment of priorities that could affect science and society for decades to come.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.These actions are all unprecedented, says Harold Varmus, a former director of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) who is now a cancer researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. No one has ever seen a [presidential] transition in which one of the most valuable parts of our government enterprise is being taken apart.The Trump White House did not respond to Natures request for comment.Here, Nature unpacks the Trump teams blazing-fast actions on science so far (scroll to bottom to see timeline Science impacts: one month of Trump 2.0) and talks to policy watchers about whats next.Fast and furiousThe overhaul of US science kicked off within hours of Trumps inauguration on 20 January, when he signed dozens of executive orders, which are presidential directives on how the government should operate inside existing laws.Some of those orders had been anticipated, including pulling the United States out of the 2015 Paris agreement to rein in global climate emissions and terminating the nations membership in the World Health Organization. Others had surprising and immediate ripple effects through the scientific community.One order erroneously attempted to define only two biological sexes, male and female, and banned federal actions that promote or otherwise inculcate gender ideology. Biomedical-research agencies such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scrambled to respond by, among other things, taking down data sets from their websites and pulling back manuscript submissions from scientific journals to purge terms including gender and transgender.Another executive order banned what Trump called illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Any federal employee who did not report colleagues defying the DEI orders would face adverse consequences, according to an e-mail sent to government workers. To many scientists dismay, agencies began terminating DEI programmes, including environmental-justice efforts, which are programmes aimed at protecting low-income communities vulnerable to pollution and climate change. Even some scientific societies and private research organizations scrubbed DEI mentions from their websites. In one of Trumps orders, he called for the investigation of foundations, non-profit organizations and other private entities not in compliance.On 27 January, just one week into the new administration, Trumps budget office froze all federal grants and loans, saying that it needed to review government spending to ensure that it aligned with the executive orders. Chaos erupted as agencies, including the NIH and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) both major funders of basic science halted grant payments, cancelled review panels for research-grant funding and paused communications. A federal judge temporarily blocked the order, but disruptions and confusion continue.Principal investigators who lead research teams are suffering in this environment, says a university scientist who requested anonymity because their research is funded by multiple US agencies. Everything is on you to manage your grants and your team, they say, adding that theres a lot of fear of people not wanting to say or do the wrong thing and therefore lose financial support for their work. Its completely chaotic; Im losing sleep.Slash and burnTrumps unprecedented directives landed as his partnership with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has flourished. The pair are working together to slash federal spending and dismantle agencies such as the US Agency for International Development, which funds global disease research, prevention and care.To accomplish this goal, the Trump administration working through the US Department of Government Efficiency, which Musk reportedly advises has moved quickly to demoralize and gut the federal workforce, including about 280,000 scientists and engineers. Initially, a 30 January e-mail offer to all federal employees asked them to move from lower productivity jobs in the public sector to higher productivity jobs in the private sector; around 75,000 employees subsequently resigned, on the promise that they would retain their salary through September. And last week, layoffs began for probationary employees across the US government those usually hired into their positions within the past two years, meaning that early-career researchers were particularly affected.I cant even convey how haphazard and cruel the layoffs are, says an NIH researcher who lost members of their laboratory to the job cuts and requested anonymity because they werent authorized to speak with the press. E-mails notifying workers that they were being let go reportedly gave a blanket reason of poor performance for the termination even to those whose performance was rated exceptional by their supervisors. They took some of the best and brightest people who just joined the government and laid them off, the researcher says.Many predict legal challenges will arise. An officer at the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403 union, which represents scientists at the NSF among others, says that it is assessing all legal options to address the reckless firing of federal workers.Demonstrators attend a protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE cuts to medical research and higher education during a "Fund Don't Freeze" rally outside the Health and Human Services headquarters in Washington, D.C., on February 19, 2025.Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty ImagesMeanwhile, Trumps team upended biomedical research when it announced on 7 February an NIH policy that would slash billions of dollars of funding annually for US universities, hospitals and other research institutions. The policy would cut research-overhead costs from an average of about 40% to a flat 15% rate for research grants. The costs cover electricity, waste removal and other facility fees, as well as administrative expenses, and are added on top of grant money dedicated to lab equipment, reagents and researcher salaries. The policy is currently on hold, pending the outcome of lawsuits contending that it is illegal.Trumps actions have even sparked worry among some conventional US conservatives. Rather than using fear and intimidation, the administration should be engaging in discussion to, say, reform the NIH and encourage scientists at the agency to take more risks, says Anthony Mills, who heads the Center for Technology, Science, and Energy at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank based in Washington DC. I worry that the opportunity for constructive reform will get lost in all of this chaos, Mills says.Month two and beyondPolicy specialists who spoke to Nature say that there is more to come. Many of the policies rolled out during the first month of Trump 2.0 track with proposals put forth in Project 2025, a blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think-tank in Washington DC. Trump officially disavowed that document during his presidential campaign, but many of its authors have now joined his administration.The document also calls for slashing climate research at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and privatizing many meteorological services offered by the US National Weather Service. Project 2025 also says that the US Department of Energy should halt investments in clean-energy technologies and focus instead on basic science. The document cites quantum information sciences and artificial intelligence as examples of this type of science.More cuts to the federal workforce are also probably coming. Project 2025 calls for an overhaul of the rules governing the civil service, which is composed of government workers including scientists who were hired on the basis of expertise rather than being politically appointed. The Trump administration is reportedly crafting a regulation that could make it easier to fire many of those workers.Massive budget cuts for science agencies are likely on the horizon, too. Final negotiations over this years budget are under way in the Republican-dominated US Congress, and a new budgetary process will soon kick off for 2026. The question is, how much of the budget will be cut? According to Jennifer Zeitzer, who leads the public-affairs office at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology in Rockville, Maryland, Anything is possible.Science impacts: one month of Trump 2.0January 20: Trumps Day 1 executive ordersKey orders announced that the United States would pull out of the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization. Others targeted the federal workforce for deep cuts, froze foreign aid and sought to eliminate diversity programmes, funding and efforts across the US government.January 21: NIH activities suspendedAn extensive pause on external communications by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)s parent organization, the US Department of Health and Human Services, led the NIH to suspend research-grant review panels, travel and training.January 27: Freeze on all federal grantsA memo from the US Office of Management and Budget froze all federal funds, which amounted to trillions in US dollars. A judge temporarily halted the freeze the next day, but some US agencies, including the US National Science Foundation (NSF), continued to hold funds.January 31: CDC databases disappear and papers are censoredComplying with Trumps executive orders on diversity and on replacing gender terminology, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) took down webpages, including those about HIV statistics and teenage health. And it ordered its scientists to withdraw all manuscripts under review at scientific journals to scrub gender-related terms. Following a court order on 11 February, the websites were temporarily restored.February 2: NSF unfreezes funds, scrutinizes grantsThe NSF unfroze funding in response to a 28 January court order but, Nature learnt, continued to scour grants for potential violations of Trumps executive orders, flagging grants that contained words such as women.February 6: Global health efforts imperiledFollowing the freeze on foreign aid, officials at the US Agency for International Development were notified that the Trump administration planned to reduce its workforce from more than 10,000 employees to about 290, threatening efforts to combat diseases such as AIDS and malaria. On 13 February, a US judge temporarily ordered that the aid funding be unfrozen.February 7: Cuts to NIH research overhead funding announcedThe NIH issued a notice that it would slash funding for indirect costs, which pay for electricity, waste-removal, administrative fees and other necessities at US research institutions. It proposed cutting the rate from an average of around 40% to 15%, which would have cut billions from the agencys budget. Before the policy took effect on 10 February, a judge temporarily halted the policy change.February 14: Layoffs at US science agencies beginThousands of employees at agencies such as the NIH, the CDC, the NSF and the US Environmental Protection Agency started to receive notice of termination as part of the Trump administrations effort to reshape and reduce the federal workforce. The employees were probationary, typically meaning that they had been in their jobs for less than two years, although some had just been promoted or switched departmentsThis article is reproduced with permission and was first published on February 20, 2025.
