Growing up in Brazil, neuroscientist Danielle Beckman always dreamed of moving to the US for work. So, in 2017, when Beckman got the opportunity to work at the California National Primate Research Center at UC Davis, she jumped on it.

“I was so excited,” she recalled. “Coming to the US was always the dream. It was always the place to be, where there’s the biggest investment in science.”

But months into President Donald Trump’s second term, as his administration wages an unprecedented war on the country’s top universities and research institutions, Beckman no longer sees the US as a welcome home for her or her research, which focuses on how viral infections like Covid-19 affect the brain.

Beckman is part of a growing wave of academics, scientists and researchers leaving the US in what many are warning could be the biggest brain drain the country has seen in decades.

But America’s loss could be the rest of the world’s gain.

As the Trump administration freezes and slashes billions of dollars in research funding, meddles with curricula, and threatens international students’ ability to study in the US, governments, universities and research institutions in Canada, Europe and Asia are racing to attract fleeing talent.

The European Union pledged €500 million ($562 million) over the next three years “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.”

A university in Marseille, France, is wooing persecuted academics under a new program called a “Safe Place for Science.” Canada’s largest health research organization is investing 30 million Canadian dollars ($21.8 million) to attract 100 scientists early in their careers from the US and elsewhere. The Research Council of Norway launched a 100 million kroner ($9.8 million) fund to lure new researchers. The president of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University recently told a crowd at a higher education summit the school is identifying “superstar” US researchers and making them offers as soon as the next day.

The Australian Academy of Science also launched a new talent program to recruit disillusioned US-based scientists and lure Australians back home.

“We know these individuals are highly trained, talented, and have much to offer,” said Anna-Maria Arabia, chief executive of the academy, noting the program has received “encouraging interest” so far.

“It’s vitally important that science can continue without ideological interference,” Arabia said.

The US could lose its scientific edge

The US has long been a powerhouse when it comes to research and development, attracting talent from far afield with its big budgets, high salaries and swanky labs.

Since the 1960s, US government expenditure in research and development (R&D) has more than doubled from $58 billion in 1961 to almost $160 billion in 2024 (in inflation-adjusted dollars), according to federal data. When incorporating R&D funding from the private sector, that number balloons to more than an estimated $900 billion in 2023.

The US’s enormous investment in R&D has led to an outsized influence on the world stage. The US has racked up more than 400 Nobel Prizes, more than double the amount of the next country, the United Kingdom. More than a third of the US’s prizes were won by immigrants.

“We have been respected worldwide for decades because we have trained succeeding generations of researchers who are pushing into new territories,” said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University.

But Trump’s second term has upended the relationship between higher education and the federal government.

Trump’s gutting of federal health and science agencies has led to sweeping job losses and funding cuts, including at the National Institutes of Health, which funds nearly $50 billion in medical research each year at universities, hospitals and scientific institutions.

Between the end of February and the beginning of April, the administration cancelled almost 700 NIH grants totaling $1.8 billion, according to an analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Trump administration has proposed reducing the NIH’s budget in 2026 by 40%.

The National Science Foundation has also slashed nearly $1.4 billion worth of grants. On Wednesday, 16 US states sued the Trump administration over the NSF cuts, which they argue will impede “groundbreaking scientific research” and “(jeopardize) national security, the economy and public health.”

Trump has also targeted elite universities and is in the middle of a legal battle with Harvard University over its refusal to bow to his administration’s directives to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs, resulting in billions in frozen federal funding. That battle significantly escalated this month when Trump banned Harvard’s ability to enroll international students – a decision swiftly halted by a federal judge hours after Harvard filed suit.

This week, the White House directed federal agencies to cancel all remaining contracts with Harvard.

“The president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values, but most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society: apprenticeships, electricians, plumbers,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News this week.

“We need more of those in our country, and less LGBTQ graduate majors from Harvard University.”

‘I don’t feel so welcome’

Foreign institutions have already jumped on the chance to welcome Harvard students now caught in legal limbo. On Monday, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology said it will accept any Harvard students that wish to transfer, as well as prospective students with a current offer from Harvard.

“I see this as the most significant crisis that universities are facing since World War Two,” Wong said. “We are seeing a complete reset of this collaborative relationship between the federal government and leading research institutions.”

Once the beacon of scientific research, the US has now become an increasingly hostile place to study, teach, and do research. Three quarters of US scientists surveyed by the journal Nature in March said they were considering leaving because of the Trump administration’s policies.

Some have already jumped ship. Yale professors Jason Stanley, Marci Shore and Timothy Snyder, preeminent fascism scholars, announced in March they were leaving for the University of Toronto across the border in Canada because of Trump’s affronts to academic freedom.

Beckman, the Brazilian neuroscientist, said her lab has seen $2.5 million in grant funding cancelled in recent months. On top of these funding woes, Beckman said the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants, and shifting attitudes towards foreigners in the US, has also pushed her to look for work elsewhere.

“It’s the first time since I moved here that I don’t feel so welcome anymore,” she said.

As the US research ecosystem responds to shrinking budgets and intrusions on academic freedom, early-career scientists are going to be hardest hit, Wong said. But younger researchers are also more mobile, and institutions around the world are welcoming them with open arms.

“What we are losing is this whole cadre of highly productive, young, energetic, well-trained, knowledgeable, advanced researchers who are primed to take off,” Wong said.

Other countries have long deprioritized investment in scientific research as the US absorbed the R&D needs of the world, Wong said. But that trend is shifting.

R&D spending in China has surged in recent decades, and the country is close to narrowing the gap with the US. China spent more than $780 billion on R&D in 2023, according to OECD data. The European Union is also spending more on R&D. R&D investment in the bloc has increased from about $336 billion in 2007 to $504 billion in 2023, according to the OECD.

For a couple of months, Beckman said she considered stepping away from her Covid-19 research, which has become increasingly politicized under the Trump administration.

But then she started getting interviews at institutions in other countries.

“There is interest in virology everywhere in the world except the US right now.”

The Nigerian journalist has been accepted into Columbia Journalism School for a master’s degree and was on the cusp of applying for her US visa. “I don’t have any backup plan,” the 31-year-old said. “I put all my eggs in one basket – in Columbia… which is quite a risk.” She is due to start her degree in New York in August having already paid a hefty enrolment fee.

Akintade is among thousands of people across the globe who were thrown into limbo on Tuesday when the US State Department instructed its embassies and consulates to pause the scheduling of new student visa interviews as it plans to expand social media vetting for applicants.

It’s the latest in a series of moves by the Trump White House targeting higher education, starting with an ongoing fight with Harvard University and then dramatically expanding in scope.

‘A scary time to study in the US’

“It feels like a really scary and unsettling time for international students studying in the US,” said one Canadian student who has also been accepted by Columbia. “A lot of us chose to study in the US for its freedoms but now knowing that innocent social media posts could cost an education feels like censorship.”

“We were looking at a post from us at Pride, and my caption was simply a rainbow flag and then a trans flag. And I was on the phone with her ‘and I was like, do I have to take this down?’ Eventually we decided no, I could leave it up, but I changed the caption, I removed the trans flag. I don’t know how to feel about that,” the student said.

“I do think it’s real proof that it is a fear campaign that is incredibly successful,” she said, adding that she has deferred her place for this year after getting a job offer. “I changed the caption with the anticipation that it could get worse. Today it is one (issue) and tomorrow it will be another one.”

The State Department has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms since 2019, a spokesperson said. In addition, it had already called for extra social media vetting of some applicants, largely related to alleged antisemitism. But it’s unclear what kind of post might pose a problem for an application from now on, or how these posts will be scrutinized.

British student Conrad Kunadu said he’d been grappling with an “internal conflict” over his offer to pursue a PhD in Environmental Health at Johns Hopkins University after monitoring the crackdown on US colleges “religiously” for the past few months.

After wondering whether he could manage his anxiety that “something (he) wrote in 2016” could get him deported, Kunadu decided to stay in Britain and study at Oxford University instead. Despite being grateful to have another option, he described his situation as a “lose-lose.”

“I wanted to study in the US not just because, for my interests in health security, it’s where all the talent and resources are, but because it’s the best way to make an impact on these issues at a global scale,” Kunadu said. Like many others, he can’t help but mourn the possible academic research and advances that now may never come to fruition.

Kunadu and another student who requested anonymity both mentioned being anxious about exploring topics in their studies that could be interpreted as dissent and ruffle official feathers.

Kagan described the visa halt as “one of many attacks on higher education and immigrants… two of the Trump administration’s favorite targets,” which in this case overlap. And while the directive is consistent with what the White House was already doing, he sees this as “an unprecedented attack in a non-emergency time.”

When asked whether those who had accepted college offers and were waiting for a visa appointment had any legal avenues available to them, Kagan was not encouraging. “If someone is trying to enter and not yet getting a visa, (that person) usually has nearly no recourse,” he said.

A sense of rejection

In the 2023-34 academic year, more than 1.1 million international students studied at US higher education institutions, according to a report from the the Institute of International Education.

For Nigerian journalist Akintade, who has always dreamed of studying at an Ivy League school, the feeling of rejection by the US is weighing heavily. “This is the message I’m getting: we don’t want you,” she said, with a deep sigh.

Lisa Klaassen, Nimi Princewill and Quinta Thomson contributed to this report

New satellite images show that North Korea has deployed what appear to be balloons alongside its damaged 5,000-ton warship that has been laying on its side and partially submerged since a botched launch last week.

The stricken destroyer was the country’s newest warship and was meant to be a triumph of North Korea’s ambitious naval modernization effort. Instead, a malfunction in the launch mechanism on May 21 caused the stern to slide prematurely into the water, crushing parts of the hull and leaving the bow stranded on the shipway, state media KCNA reported, in a rare admission of bad news.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who witnessed the failed launch in the northeastern city of Chongjin, called it a “criminal act” and ordered the country to swiftly repair the as-yet-unnamed ship before the late-June plenary session of the ruling Workers’ Party, calling it a matter of national honor.

Officials have since scrambled to undo the damage and punish those they claim are responsible, detaining four people in recent days, including the shipyard’s chief engineer.

Analysts say it appears balloons are being used in North Korea’s effort to swiftly repair the destroyer.

“It looks like what appear to be balloons have been installed not to refloat the ship, but to prevent the ship from further flooding,” said Rep. Yu Yong-weon, a South Korean National Assembly lawmaker and military analyst.

Retired United States Navy Cpt. Carl Schuster said if the objects are indeed balloons, they could have one of two purposes – either to prevent “low- to mid-level drone reconnaissance,” or to reduce the stress on the part of the ship still stranded on the pier.

“That is the area that is most likely to have been damaged, suffered the most severe damage and remains under intense stress while the forward area remains out of the water,” he said.

Nick Childs, senior fellow for naval forces and maritime security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said North Korea could be in danger of further damaging the ship if it’s using balloons to keep it afloat or raise it.

“It is highly likely that the ship is under quite a lot of stress anyway,” and lifting from above could compound those stresses, he said.

Normal procedure would be to get as much buoyancy as possible in the ship and then raise it from below, Childs said.

According to satellite images shared by Maxar Technologies, more than a dozen white, balloon-like objects have been deployed around the destroyer since May 23.

The images don’t appear to show any flotation bladders supporting the hull or the body of the ship, Schuster said – something the US might use in such a situation. He added that North Korea’s maritime industry might not be advanced enough for such techniques.

North Korean state media had previously reported that the damage was less severe than initially feared, and that there were no holes in the hull, though it was scratched along the side and some seawater had entered the stern. It estimated repairs could take about 10 days – though analysts are skeptical.

The ship’s precarious position also makes the salvage operation unusually complex. “Having it half in and half out of the water is basically the worst possible situation,” said Decker Eveleth, an associate research analyst at CNA, a nonprofit specializing in defense research.

He added that the operation would be simpler if the ship had fully capsized into the water, or if it had fallen over entirely on land. “But as it’s half on land and half on water – if you try to pull the sunken half out, you’re risking twisting and breaking the keel,” Eveleth said, referring to the structural spine running along the ship’s bottom. “And if you do that, the whole ship is junk.”

Childs said North Korea may have to cut the ship into pieces and then try to salvage what it can because righting it from its current position is an extremely complex task.

“Very often the only way you clear the dock … is to dismantle at least part of the ship to make the operation easier, right what you have left and tow it away and make a decision on whether you rebuild it or scrap it,” he said.