Allies or Adversaries? Science Diplomacy’s Calibration in the President’s Budget Request
The White House released its Fiscal Year 2027 budget request last week, with sweeping implications for science, technology, and innovation policy. Nestled in the cuts and investments of interest to the S&T community is a more complex story of how the administration is approaching the practice of science diplomacy–leveraging science as a bridge between countries in order to build trust, open dialogue, advance shared interests, and participate in discoveries that benefit the American people.
Headlining the budget request are deep reductions in funding for programs and initiatives traditionally responsible for providing science diplomacy capacity. While those programs languish, and the administration is requesting investments in new and existing initiatives, a coherent reoriented strategy emerges: one that shifts away from traditional, cooperation-based, institution-building models of science and technology engagement and instead embraces a more transactional posture that prioritizes U.S. strategic competition and national security.
The Cuts
First, the administration has requested significant program cuts and eliminations across agencies, with implications for science diplomacy capacity and priorities.
Department of Commerce
NOAA operations, research, and grants are cut by $1.6 billion, affecting international research partnerships such as Argo, which powers global weather forecasting through a global network of thousands of profiling floats; the Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing Program (GOMO), which provides one million ocean observations per day to “understand our changing ocean and its impact on the environment”; and the Partnership for Sustainably Managed Fisheries, which supports efforts to prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. In addition, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) funding is cut by $993 million, with implications for the ability of NIST to credibly function as a world-class international standards organization. Finally, there is a $150 million reduction for the International Trade Administration (ITA), reducing America’s scientific and trade presence in what the administration has characterized as “low-value markets,” and potentially leaving a vacuum for a U.S. adversary to fill instead.
Department of Energy
Cuts to the Office of Science by $1.1 billion, affecting research programs that have historically anchored international scientific collaboration, such as the international fusion flagship the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Cuts to ITER imperil the domestic fusion research enterprise, as ITER is currently the only long-pulse fusion experiment with U.S. investment where some of the most difficult basic research challenges will also take place. In addition, the administration also calls for a prohibition on the use of federal funds for subscriptions to academic journals and for publishing costs, which can mean that federal researchers lose access to international journal databases, federal researchers may be less able to publish in high-visibility international venues, and foreign researchers will see fewer U.S. voices in shared academic spaces.
Department of Health and Human Services
The budget request proposes a $5 billion reduction in funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and specifically, the elimination of the Fogarty International Center, which advances NIH’s mission by “supporting and facilitating global health research conducted by U.S. and international investigators, building partnerships between health research institutions in the U.S. and abroad, and training the next generation of scientists to address global health needs.” Fogarty has a history of training biomedical researchers around the globe to defend against emergent health threats, including Dr. Sikhulile Moyo, who sequenced and identified the first major vaccine-resistant strain of COVID-19 in Botswana; and Dr. Christian Happi, who led efforts diagnosing and confirming Ebola in Nigeria which ended up saving millions of lives.
Department of State and International Programs
The President’s request calls for a reduction of $4.3 billion for global health programs, with a restructuring of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) towards more bilateral health assistance under the America First Global Health Strategy (AFGHS). In addition, it calls for a $2.7 billion reduction in funding for international organizations like the United Nations. President Trump has not shied away from critique of the UN in the past, remarking that “not only is the UN not solving the problems it should, too often, it is actually creating new problems for us to solve.” Instead, the administration proposes supporting peacekeeping missions through more flexible funding in the America First Opportunity Fund (referenced later in this analysis under investments). The budget request also calls for a reduction of $642.4 million for Treasury’s international programs, with total cuts to multilateral financial institutions such as the African Development Bank and Global Environment Facility.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The administration proposes $3.4 billion in cuts to NASA’s science program, with implications for the SERVIR program, a joint venture with USAID which “provides satellite-based Earth observation data and science applications to help developing nations in Central America, East Africa, and the Himalayas improve their environmental decision making.” In addition, it calls for $1.1 billion in cuts to the International Space Station (ISS), considered a premier example of international science diplomacy and collaboration. The Administration has also canceled U.S. involvement in NASA flagship programs, like the Lunar Gateway, which are only possible through cooperation with dozens of countries. When the United States unilaterally withdraws from projects without consulting our partners, it can damage the reputation of the United States due to the hundreds of millions of dollars in unrecoverable effort spent by those countries. This undermines the credibility and reliability of the United States, making similar undertakings dramatically more difficult in the future.
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is requesting a dramatic cut to funding for its Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), requesting just $2.74 million, down from $48 million in FY25. While NSF characterizes its overall budget request, down significantly from previous years, as a reflection of a “strategic alignment of resources in a constrained fiscal environment,” OISE programs like Accelnet and MultiPlex provide funding for U.S. institutions to participate in international networks, giving American researchers access to specialty knowledge, platforms, and talent that is necessary to advance American discovery and innovation. This includes funding to ensure American leadership in international organizations like the International Science Council and ensuring access to extreme laser platforms currently only located in Hungary, Czechia, and Romania. At the requested level, OISE would be unable to support grant programs and maintain minimal staff.
The New Investments
At the same time, the budget also proposes significant new investments, whose shape is equally telling to the administration’s approach to science diplomacy.
Department of Commerce
The administration touts an unprecedented $215 million budget increase request for the Bureau of Industry and Security to protect American innovation and national security from the threat of “malign actors.” The DNI’s Foreign Malign Influence Center defines malign influence agents as potentially being “foreign government officials, intelligence services, cyber actors, criminal groups, state-run media organizations, social media actors, and businesses with close ties to government officials.” Despite targeting malign actors in theory, in practice, this orientation has historically also implicated legitimate scientific exchange. While export controls may limit foreign competitiveness in the short term, once foreign governments adapt, they can also undermine the competitiveness of American companies.
Department of Energy
A $394 million investment to drive American dominance in critical minerals production, and the insulation of critical mineral production and processing supply chains from potential threats posed by adversaries. Notably, critical minerals are essential inputs for clean energy technologies, such as electric vehicles and battery storage, that the budget simultaneously eliminates funding for, even as it expands support for coal and fossil fuel production.
Department of State and other international programs
$5 billion in funding for the America First Opportunity Fund, which would replace several accounts–including Development Assistance (DA), Democracy Fund (DF), Economic Support Fund (ESF), and Assistance for Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia (AEECA)–with a more flexible pool of money oriented towards bilateral partnerships and initiatives that, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will advance “US diplomatic, security, and economic goals.” In addition, the budget requests $13 billion in funding for critical mineral supply chains, complementing similar investments at the Department of Energy.
This is not simply a story of cuts; rather, it is a story of whole-of-government reorientation towards science diplomacy that has consequences not just for American innovation and competitiveness, but critical interests that we share on a global scale. How Congress responds to the President’s budget request with its own appropriations legislation, and how the broader S&T community engages with that process, will determine whether this shift represents a temporary recalibration or a more durable transformation of how the United States shows up as a partner on the world stage, and, equally important, how it is seen by its allies and adversaries.
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