Few would dispute that the United States owes its global leadership – its economic might, military superiority, energy security, soft power, and geopolitical clout – to its position at the frontier of innovation. So, why is US President Donald Trump’s administration – with its fixation on American “greatness” and antagonistic approach to friends and rivals alike – actively dismantling the underpinnings of America’s technological dominance?
According to William H. Janeway, a distinguished affiliated professor in economics at the University of Cambridge, trying to “sane-wash” the Trump administration’s policies is a “fool’s errand.” The agenda is being carried out by a “diverse” and “poorly aligned” set of players – from “economic nationalists” to “tech bros” – seeking to “take advantage of the opportunity created by Trump’s second presidency” to advance their own ends. But the upshot is unmistakeable: by “gutting the American state,” defunding critical research, and attacking universities, the Trump administration is “fatally weakening” America’s innovation economy.
In fact, writes Carl Benedikt Frey, Associate Professor of AI & Work at the Oxford Internet Institute and Director of the Future of Work Program at the Oxford Martin School, Trump’s policies almost seem designed to dismantle the pillars of US innovation. These include America’s “intellectually autonomous” research institutions, attractiveness to global talent, “commitment to vigorous competition,” venture-capital-based funding model, and “impartial state.” The “only consolation,” he notes, is that “America’s main competitor, China, also faces big internal challenges.”
Qiyuan Xu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the National University of Singapore’s Wang Yaqiang agree that China’s “path to technological dominance” will not be easy, noting that Chinese policymakers must “strike a delicate balance between encouraging innovation and enforcing strict data controls.” Nonetheless, history suggests that China’s AI capabilities are likely to catch up to, and even surpass, those of the US – a trend that Trump’s policies will only accelerate.
Europe is also seeking to develop its digital sector, but according to University College London’s Mariana Mazzucato and Aalborg University’s Bengt-Åke Lundvall, its current strategy for doing so – focused on deregulation and higher investment – is woefully inadequate. If Europe is to “close the digital gap” with China and the US – and thereby bolster its own “security and sovereignty” – it must ensure that the relevant investment is “outcomes-oriented,” while taking steps to prevent “foreign tech giants from reaping the rewards.”
But innovation is not just a tool of geopolitical competition. As Sergei Guriev, Dean and Professor of Economics at the London Business School, points out, new “insights and innovations relating to AI, climate change, health, inequality, and geopolitics benefit all of humankind.” At a time when US universities are “facing unprecedented political pressure,” governments, philanthropists, and universities elsewhere must therefore step up their efforts to supply this global public good.
