The Trump administration has continued its attack on US universities and temporary immigrants last week by revoking Harvard University’s certification under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program. This removed the ability of the University to sponsor F and J-visas for international scholars and students for the 2025-26 academic year. This feels personal, as 37 years ago I was one of those J-1 students, and last year I visited the Kennedy School as an academic visitor. I can only imagine how the students and scholars are feeling about the prospect that their dreams and aspirations will be ripped away.
Students come to Harvard to join a community of the best minds from around the world. American students and scholars are enriched by the diversity of ideas and experiences that foreigners bring. But this is about much more than universities in the Ivy League. We are all better off because since the end of the Second World War the United States has been a welcoming place where cutting edge research is encouraged.
The US economy has benefited greatly from the pull power of their great academic institutions and the resources that the US government puts toward basic research and advanced education. The knowledge generated and the skills that people build provides the foundation for US exceptionalism in science and technology. All great US companies, from Google to SpaceX, are built on knowledge that came from the universities and research organisations, and by people who trained in these institutions.
The Trump administration seems determined to erode the bedrock for US exceptionalism. Basic and applied research at the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institute of Health (NIH) and others programs will halve US government investment in research and development. The short-term impact is awful for those directly affected as they will have to abandon work they have often dedicated their lives to do. But the costs to the US economy will grow over time as the private sector has little incentive to undertake the type of basic research funded by government and by donors through their contribution to university endowments. Forbes estimated that the NIH and NSF cuts alone would cost the US economy at least US$10 billion a year. The costs to productivity will grow over time as the US will no longer attract the brightest and the best, and American talent flees to places where they have greater certainty over funding and can make a life without risk of being arbitrarily expelled.
Cruelty seems to be a design feature of the Trump administration’s policies rather than an unintended consequence.
The paused and implemented tariff regime is another way that the Trump administration policies are destroying US exceptionalism. It will not fix the trade deficit as both exports and imports will fall. For some in the administration isolationism might be the objective. But cutting the country off from the returns that come from trade will dampen innovation and reduce investment. In addition to the direct costs of tariffs for US firms and consumers the tariff agenda will erode US leadership in productivity that has been part of US exceptionalism.
Trump administration policies are also eroding confidence in the US government’s ability and willingness to honour its financial commitments. The downgrading of US Treasuries from AAA by Moody’s was the last of the big three rating agencies to lose confidence that Congress was capable of reducing the fiscal deficit.
The United States has long had an outsized influence on the international rules-based order. In the economic sphere this was to the benefit of most other countries, but it bought Washington the ability to exempt itself from the rules on occasion. US economic sway gave it the ability to foster regulations to the benefit of US multinational corporations, while its “soft power” assets helped balance the reputational ledger. Now, the closing down of USAID, removal of support for international broadcasting, and withdrawal from international institutions including the World Health Organisation and the Paris Accord, are eroding US influence abroad. As in technology and in trade, this withdrawal opens up opportunities for China to fill the void. Surely the US administration must be concerned that its policies may well herald a new era of Chinese, rather than US, exceptionalism.
Cruelty seems to be a design feature of the Trump administration’s policies rather than an unintended consequence. From the way in which federal workers found out that their jobs had gone, to loss of access to antiretroviral drugs in programs supported by USAID, to student and other deportations, the actions seem vindictive. Pity that US exceptionalism is being squandered by policies that seem to have little purpose but to punish “others”.
