US lawmakers killed a proposal targeting science efforts with China, and did this instead
US researchers and industry experts warn that even the revised version may have unintended consequences
The SAFE (Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation) Research Act would have denied federal funding to any US researcher working with scientists from China and several other countries, but it did not make it into the US$901 billion National Defence Authorisation Act for the 2026 financial year.
The proposal, introduced by Michigan Republican Representative John Moolenaar, was widely criticised by the US research community, including senior academics and major scientific organisations.
Lin Haifan, a cell biologist at Yale University, told Science magazine that such a measure could “accelerate the breakdown of the people-to-people trust” that was key to scientific collaboration.
“Without this kind of positive energy, the US and China will become more and more polarised and eventually become each other’s enemy,” he said last month.