Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 27, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 MONDAY JANUARY 27, 2025 Ideas, Issues, Insights Trump’s calculated assault on science M ERE hours from taking the oath of office, U.S. President Donald Trump executed a blitzkrieg against science, freezing all activity in the science-funding agencies across the federal government. The research enterprise in the crown jewels of American science, the Na- tional Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is stopped dead in its tracks. We don’t know yet whether this a temporary pause or permanent closure, but damage is already being inflicted. Grant review panels are halted, meaning no new research funding and layoffs of scientists. And all the science agencies are being muzzled with external communication banned. The NIH is the world’s largest publicly funded science agency, with a budget of nearly US$50 billion annually. That dwarfs the Canadian equivalent, the Canadian Institutes of Health Re- search (CIHR) and its budget of about C$1 billion annually. Trump took pains to distance himself from Project 2025 during the election campaign. It is the infamous 922-page manifesto produced the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. But all of his early policy moves are taken directly from its pages, sending shivers down the spine of the science community. Among other things, Project 2025 calls for dismantling the NIH and distributing block grants to the states in its place. This would be a disaster of the first order. The NIH grant competitions are fiercely competitive and represent the gold standard for peer-reviewed research. And it gets results. How important is the NIH? Its importance to the global community cannot be overstated. If you have received (evidence-based) health care — e.g., treatment for cancer, cardiac disease, pso- riasis, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, shingles, tubercu- losis, COVID or myriad other health conditions — you have very likely received the direct benefits of NIH-funded research. A detailed analysis of the importance of NIH and NSF funding to science isn’t possible in the short space here, so just a snapshot from the pin- nacle of science. This year, laureates for all of the science Nobels (physiology or medicine; physics; chemistry) received NSF funding for their re- search; and 2024 laureates in physiology or medi- cine and chemistry received NIH funding. In all, NIH funding has supported research generating over 100 Nobel Prizes across the sciences. No other funding agency can boast such suc- cess. Trump intends to put an end to that. His nom- ination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the secre- tary of health and human services, the parent agency to the NIH, sent alarm bells ringing across the scientific community. RFK Jr is a notorious anti-vaccine crank. He is on the record as saying all infectious disease research should stop for eight years. Watch out if there is a bird flu pandemic. Putting a charlatan in charge of the world’s most important science funding agency will only bring it into disrepute. And that is the obvious intent: to undermine science and role of experts. Trump’s actions show all the signs of a vendet- ta against the scientists who embarrassed him during the COVID pandemic. When Trump sug- gested that injecting bleach might be a treatment for COVID, his chief medical adviser, Anthony Fauci, had to warn the public that would be a really stupid and dangerous thing to do. Trump didn’t forget. Former president Joe Biden so feared that Trump would seek revenge against this dedicated public servant, he gave him a prophylactic presi- dential pardon. But it’s not just the NIH and NSF in the cross- hairs. Trump is purging any climate-related research from the federal government, calling it climate alarmism. Project 2025 proposes to dismantle, among other things, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and privat- ize the National Weather Service. Want alerts to an oncoming tornado or hurricane? Get out your credit card. Why does this matter to Canadians? Because Trump is charting the path for his northern alter ego. The self-anointed prime-minister-in-waiting has become increasingly Trump-like both in his rhetoric and policy. A Fox News host described a recent Poilievre speech as so similar to Trump that “I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald Trump wrote it.” Among the other targets of Trump’s early moves are “wokeism” and DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, looking to purge all of the this from not just the federal government, but the private sector too. Poilievre? His recent extend- ed interview with Jordan Peterson, psychologist and right-wing media star, lamented the evils of “wokeism.” Trump in his executive orders declared there are only two genders. Poilievre de- clared immediately afterward there are only two genders. Trump is virulently opposed to climate science and pro-fossil fuel. Poilievre is virulently opposed to carbon taxes and pro-fossil fuels. The similarities to Trump and his policies are too great to be ignored. If Pierre Poilievre indeed becomes our next prime minister, Canada’s sci- ence community has much to fear. Scott Forbes is an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg. Western leadership in disarray amid Trump’s return DONALD Trump has declared his second presi- dency will herald a new golden age for America. That’s questionable. But all indications are Trump thinks this can be achieved by doubling down on his bombastic, zero-sum approach to diplomacy. This isn’t just a problem for U.S. adversaries. Liberal democracies must also now navigate the whims of an emboldened America First adminis- tration. Their top priority is to prevent the rules- based international system from backsliding into law-of-the-jungle style competition. Small and medium-sized nations, including Canada, derive their security and prosperity from an orderly form of globalization. The contemporary model is not perfect. Its main institutions date back to the end of the Second World War. They are unfit to handle the complex, cascading crises of the 21st century. But existing structures need careful reform, not annihilation. A broad alliance of the Western world, if unified, can defuse Trump’s worst impulses. Yet many liberal democracies must first get their own houses sorted. And soon. Justin Trudeau’s resignation as prime minister has left a gaping hole in Ottawa at precisely the wrong time. His replacement — likely Conserva- tive Leader Pierre Poilievre — will only be elect- ed and settled into office six months from now. Until then, Poilievre’s pushback against Trump seems bound to remain vague and muted. Trying awkwardly to fill the void are provincial premiers and Liberal cabinet ministers. Their scattershot ideas and public contradictions of each other over how Canada should respond to tariff threats caters to Trump’s strengths. The former reality TV star routinely says false and outlandish things to mask his true intentions. And dictate news cycles. The goal is to put undisci- plined counterparts on the back foot, luring them into making negotiating mistakes. The situation is hardly better in Europe. The European Union’s executive branch assembled an informal “Trump task force” last year. The group has been brainstorming measures since before Trump was re-elected to safeguard the US$1.5 trillion in annual EU-U.S. trade against any tec- tonic shifts in Washington’s policies. Yet this strategy requires co-ordination among the EU’s 27 member states. Unfortunately, many of them are consumed with internal problems. The continent’s twin powers, France and Germa- ny, are especially mired in political dysfunction and economic malaise. French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed three different prime ministers in just the past year alone. One government was toppled after circumventing constitutional procedures to ram through unpopular fiscal policies. Macron then impulsively called a snap election in June, hoping to quash surging support for France’s hard-right opposition party. Such instability has spooked away business investment, crushed con- sumer confidence and inflamed tensions within the electorate. Germany heads to the polls on Feb. 23 after its government collapsed last month following a no-confidence vote in Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The country’s export-driven economy — the world’s third-largest — previously thrived off cheap Rus- sian energy to power its manufacturing sector. Automotive exports flowed to China. But now it’s flatlining. Sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and an explosion in Chinese electric vehicle production have brought Germany’s industrial heartland to its knees. Unemployment is at levels last seen during the height of the pandemic. The country’s central bank foresees the economy barely growing in 2025 after contracting by 0.2 per cent last year. Ultranationalist groups are ascendant across the continent as well, capitalizing on anti-immi- grant sentiment and voter concerns over falling living standards. Such feelings propelled Kremlin sympathizers to recent election wins in Austria and Slovakia. Across the English Channel, Britain’s new Labour government — only a few months old — is already floundering. It has swiftly broken a series of promises, including by cutting off winter fuel payment benefits to seniors. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has meanwhile been tainted by revela- tions he’s been prone to accepting free gifts. Elsewhere, South Korea continues to spiral after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s bizarre decision on Dec. 3 to declare martial law. In Japan, only one-third of voters approve of the cabinet makeup of the current governing coalition; a shakeup could be imminent. In an essay published a few days before Trump’s inauguration, political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon warned that “experience shows that Mr. Trump usually backs down when an opponent shows a spine.” But, he adds, “… it’s hard to have a spine when you don’t have a head. And at the very moment of greatest danger for Canada, we’re close to headless.” The same could be said about much of the liber- al democratic world. Kyle Hiebert is a Winnipeg-based researcher and analys and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor. The Middle East: where next? IN the 80 hours between Wednesday, Jan. 15, when the Gaza ceasefire agreement was announced, and Sunday, Jan. 19 , when it went into effect, Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 123 Palestinians including dozens of women and children. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had tried to avoid civilian casualties, but it had to kill the “terrorists” of Hamas wherever they were. Now, of course, it has to stop killing them, at least for a while. Thirty-three Israelis will be freed by Hamas over the next few weeks in return for 1,890 Palestinian prisoners. However, much of the IDF and even mem- bers of Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu’s own cabinet expect to go back to war after the first phase of the hostage exchange. The second phase will be much harder for Netanyahu’s supporters and allies to swallow. It requires complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip and the use of Hamas members as a sort of police force (mostly unarmed) to facilitate the return of more than a million Palestinians, already many times displaced, to their wrecked homes in the northern part of the territory. The cynics are therefore convinced that Netanyahu will first take credit for the hostage exchange to reduce the domestic political pressure on him, then use a real or faked violation of the ceasefire by Hamas as an excuse to restart the war. After all, he needs a war if he is to stay out of jail. Just staying in power and out of jail was a persuasive explanation for his behaviour until quite recently. Only the war spared Netanyahu from a devastating inquiry into his failure to foresee and prevent the Hamas attack in October 2023 and it also stalled his ongoing corruption trial. But that logic may no longer apply. “We changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu said last week. He’s right and it may give him a new lease on power. Hamas is leaderless and has lost its Iranian patron. The IDF has devastated Hezbollah in Lebanon and killed its leader. Iran’s formerly dominant position in Syria was swept away together with the Assad re- gime. Even Iran itself has been revealed as a paper tiger in terms of its missiles and its air defences and there are serious questions about its internal stability. And now Netanyahu has U.S. President Donald Trump on his side. Not under his thumb — Trump’s people put huge pressure on Netanyahu to get his final assent to the ceasefire — but the Israeli leader will have been quick to grasp that new opportunities are opening up for him as the Middle East- ern constellation of powers shifts. Netanyahu will probably never talk the United States into attacking Iran for him, but he did get Trump to cancel the no-nukes accord with Iran and clamp strict sanctions on the country in 2019. He is not without influence at the new White House. Could Netanyahu get the United States to apply even stronger sanctions against Iran now that Trump is back on top? Probably yes and in that case the road would be open for the two of them to pursue their pipe dream from last time: the Abraham Accords. That “peace treaty,” establishing diplomat- ic relations between Israel and some Arab countries that had never actually fought against it (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan) was touted as the defining diplomatic achievement of the first Trump presidency. In fact, it never amount- ed to much, because Saudi Arabia, the greatest power of the eastern Arab world, never joined. Now, perhaps, with Iran so crippled, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia might be persuaded to make peace with Israel and set up some sort of joint hegemony over the Middle East. Or such at least may be the visions now dancing before the eyes of Trump and Netanya- hu. Even MbS (as he is known) might be tempted. More pipe dreams and even if they should come to pass, they wouldn’t last long. Netanyahu has been trying to write the Palestinians out of the story for his whole political life and Trump may go along for the ride. But MbS doesn’t dare let Israel ex- punge the Palestinians, neither does General Sisi in Egypt, and Iranians wouldn’t hear of it even if the regime changes. There is no viable plan and peace is not nigh. Gwynne Dyer’s new book is Intervention Earth: Life-Saving Ideas from the World’s Climate Engineers. KYLE HIEBERT GWYNNE DYER MATT ROURKE / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS U.S. President Donald Trump is doing untold damage in the first weeks of his term. SCOTT FORBES ;