Australian academics were alarmed over the weekend when the Trump administration announced that it would likely halt funding to seven universities totaling $600 million.
Australian Academy of Science chief executive Anna-Maria Arabia is pressuring Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to respond to the funding loss.
"It is incumbent on the prime minister to call an emergency meeting of the National Science and Technology Council, which he chairs, compelling all ministers to the table to share intel and comprehensively assess the extent of Australia’s exposure to a reduction in US R&D investment across portfolios," Arabia said, according to Sky News.
"The consequences of inaction are profound with consequences for every Australian’s way of life," she said.
A week earlier the Trump administration sent a 36-point questionnaire to each university to make sure the research projects don’t clash with U.S. policy, such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), or woke gender policy.
That annoyed National Tertiary Education Union president Alison Barnes.
"The federal government must push back on the Trump administration's blatant foreign interference in our independent research in the strongest possible terms," Barnes said.
Obviously, the simplest and most direct way to avoid even the appearance of foreign interference into the Australian academic research would be to withhold funding altogether.
But Australia shouldn’t feel as though they’ve been singled out.
This move came two weeks after the White House announced plans to halt $400 million in funding to New York's Columbia University.
An Office of Management and Budget memo was sent to an Australian university project, one week after Trump's inauguration that addressed the administration’s spending priorities, which should have given a hint of what was to come.
"Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending 'wokeness' and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again," the memo said.
"The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."
In short, America First. But Anne Applebaum, a columnist for The Atlantic, had a different phrase in mind.
President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have created a brand new stereotype for America: "Not the quiet American, not the ugly American, but the brutal American," she wrote.
"Whatever fond memories remain of the smiling GIs who marched into European cities in 1945, of the speeches that John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan made at the Berlin Wall, or of the crowds that once welcomed Barack Obama, those are also fading fast."
But in truth there’s nothing "brutal" about a country looking out for itself — it’s facing reality, especially after four years of being the world’s piggy bank.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed the administration’s efforts to ease the "affordability crisis" on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday.
"Donald Trump, his administration, and myself all believe the American people know what they’re feeling, and we believe our policies will change that," he said.
"We’ve been in for eight weeks. We’re putting the policies in place that will make the affordability crisis go down."
Bessent’s predecessor, Janet Yellen, helped create the crisis and dismissed inflation as "transitory" while her boss, Joe Biden, handed out money like it was candy. And when the till was empty, Yellen just printed up more money, which increased inflation more.
No, we’re not the "brutal American;" we’re the realistic American with an "America First" agenda. And part of that agenda is taking care of out own needs before financing foreign universities.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He's also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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