Billions of dollars in funding – from cancer research to investigations into immune cells – have been withheld or terminated entirely by the Trump administration in a political attack on vaccines, targeted outreach programs, and specific language. The cuts affect national institutions and universities alike, and will have consequences for years to come. 

The Supreme Court ruled in August that President Trump’s $2 billion in cuts to the National Institute of Health (NIH) will go forward. The largest project affected was a $77 million grant to the Lurie Cancer Center at Northwestern University. The University’s president resigned in September, followed by the Interim President agreeing to pay the US government $75 million to restore research funding.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) biggest target was $7 million in funding to INCLUDES initiation, which focuses on breaking down systematic barriers to STEM education and careers. The NSF continues to fund grants, though President Trump has requested Congress to reduce the institution’s budget by 57%. The decision lies with Congress, though gerrymandering efforts are attempting to increase the Republican vote in the House in order to push moves, like these funding cuts, through legislation easier. 

Affected grants are being watched closely by organizations like Grant Witness – an independent reporting agency that compiles data from scientists sharing which grants have been slowed, news and media outlets, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) website. 

As part of President Trump’s ‘Radical Transparency on Wasteful Spending’, HHS releases a PDF of frozen cuts to the public. While the website is currently shut down and not transparent, the PDF is available here.

In Washington State, the NIH cuts equal approximately $3.51 million in losses. None of the 46 NSF grants have been reinstated, which is approximately $17.76 million in losses. Washington State has been hit the hardest by funding cuts, followed by North Carolina.

The biggest topics that have been hit relate to HIV/AIDs research as well as health research for transgender Americans. The Trump Administration signed an executive order at the beginning of Trump 2.0 that declares a person’s gender cannot be different from their assigned sex at birth.  

Much of the terminated grants were not vetted before the freeze. Instead, the White House performed a large sweep of all grants for keywords like “diversity”, “Trans”, and “gender”. A lot of these terms have many scientific definitions or included a similar prefix that led to their termination (i.e., ‘transcript’). The New York Times reported a full list of ‘flagged words,’ but it has since been taken down. 

ScienceNews reported that a grant to investigate how neurons regulate specialized immune cells in the retina lost $490 thousand. While the reason for the termination remained unclear, the grant mentions that these cells exhibit remarkable “diversity”, a flagged term by the administration.  

While government organizations are easy targets for the White House, President Trump’s real target has been Harvard University in retaliation for protests that took place last year against the university’s involvement in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Other universities (Columbia and Northwestern) also faced similar retaliatory cuts, and have since cut deals with the administration, agreeing to pay the federal government millions of dollars. Harvard has refused, and talks between the university and the White House are ongoing. 

Cuts to research and an attempt to bottleneck funding will have lengthy consequences. Researchers and scientists will struggle to get their projects funded, students will turn away from the STEM pathways, and renowned minds will avoid coming to the US to innovate.

**Mavrie has been serving as editor for the ThunderWord since 2024. She is also the founding president of Highline’s Non-fiction Writers Circle.**