What might the result of the election mean?
Observed Concerns about Trump’s 2020 Presidential Campaign: Environmental Protection Agency, Clean Air Quality, and the Public Health of the United States
Some have already begun to think about January 2025, when Trump is slated to take office. “I hope we can convince the Trump administration to adopt a bold evidence-based science agenda and to hire people who are skilled and competent to implement it,” says Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association in Washington DC. But the last time he was in office, Benjamin adds, “he had some absolutely amazing scientists who worked for him, and then he undermined them — he didn’t follow their advice” — in particular by publicly rebuking them and not pushing a strong response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
One senior official from the US Environmental Protection Agency is afraid of repercussions under a new law, so they are not saying who they need to push back on. We should remember what’s right. And what’s right is protecting public health and the environment.”
Worries pouring in this morning align with those expressed by the majority of readers who responded last month to a survey conducted by Nature. Eighty-six per-cent of the more than 2,000 people who answered the poll said that they favoured Harris, owing to concerns including climate change, public health and the state of US democracy. Some even said they would consider changing where they live or study if Trump won.
The World Needs to Be Ready for a New World: Scientists globally react to Trump election win: Nature’s View of a Mexican Neuroscience Lab
There have been quick responses towards that sentiment. The Centre for Epidemic Response and innovation at Stellenbosch University, located in South Africa, is one of the best universities. With the changes around the world, you might want to relocate to one of them.
Not everyone is against a Trump presidency. Of those who responded to Nature’s reader survey, 6% expressed a preference for Trump — usually citing concerns about security issues and the economy. Monroy-Fonseca, chief scientific officer at Seele Neuroscience, a neuroscience behavioural laboratory in Mexico City, told Nature that he believes that Trump is the lesser of the evils. The Mexican economy is strongly dependent on decisions made by the US government, Monroy-Fonseca says.
Another reader who agreed to be contacted but did not want their name to be used, worried about Trump’s hostility towards science and evidence. Nonetheless, the respondent, a longtime nurse from Wilmington, North Carolina, said they would vote for Trump because, “at the end of the day, I want to be safe, and I want to be able to take care of my family.”
“In my long life of 82 years … there has hardly been a day when I felt more sad,” says Fraser Stoddart, a Nobel laureate who left the United States last year and is now chair of chemistry at the University of Hong Kong. “I’ve witnessed something that I feel is extremely bad, not just for the United States, but for all of us in the world.”
The Challenge of Trump’s First Presidential Campaign: A Critical Reassessment of the Republican Party’s Plans for the Future of the United States
Trump has already won enough US states to sail to a resounding victory over Harris, his opponent. Trump declared his coalition the greatest political movement of all time during a speech to his supporters.
Republicans also look primed to win the upper chamber of the US Congress — the Senate — flipping at least three Democratic seats, although there are four more competitive races that have yet to be called for either party. It’s not certain if the Republicans will keep control of the lower chamber of Congress, but it’s likely they will. This would give Trump and his party full control of government in Washington DC.
According to Jasienska, a longevity researcher, a new world needs to be ready. “I am trying to be optimistic, but it is hard to find any positive aspects for global science and public health if Republicans take over.”
Trump has in the past called climate change a hoax and pulled the country out of the Paris climate agreement; he has said he would give Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a political figure who has denied the effectiveness of vaccines, a “big role” in his administration, and he has promised to make it easier to fire specialists such as scientists from the US government who oppose his political agenda.
Trump, now the US president-elect for a second time, will have some advantages as he re-enters the White House in January. His victory was a surprise because he did not have a solid plan, and many government watchers who spoke to Nature say he didn’t have a solid plan. By contrast, the Trump administration that enters office next year will be better prepared, and Trump himself is likely to face fewer checks on his power now that he has consolidated control over the Republican establishment, says Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University in Washington DC who studies the modern conservative movement.
But that still does not mean he will be able to do what he wants. A lot of Trump’s promises may collide with the real reality of implementation.
Trump, who is industry-friendly, has promised to repeal US President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI, a guideline released last year for developing the technology safely and responsibly. Trump’s pledge echoes the Republican party’s platform, which says that the executive order “hinders AI Innovation”.
It will be possible for Trump to implement his plan as soon as he enters the White House given that executive orders can be revoked by a president at any time. But what will it be like when Trump is gone?
What Trump’s election victory could mean for AI, climate and more: A critical decade for climate action and a critical presidency for the United States
The director of the center for technological responsibility at Brown University says that the emphasis will shift away from the regulatory environment and towards technology companies making their own decisions about safety. “I am personally sceptical that that will be enough” to address AI-associated risks to public safety, data-privacy concerns or the use of biased algorithms that disadvantage certain groups of people, Venkatasubramanian says.
If the United States is not in the pact, pressure on China and other nations to curb emissions may be lessened as time is running short. Lewis says that this is a critical decade for climate action and that four more years of Trump could be disastrous in mobilizing climate action.
It will not be easy to duplicate one of Biden’s climate achievements: the act which created more than US $1 trillion in climate and clean energy investments, which are scheduled to run until around 2032. Repealing that legislation would require an act of the US Congress. But even if Republicans end up in control of both congressional chambers, businesses and leaders in conservative US states that are already benefitting from IRA investments might not be eager to cut off the flow of federal money, says Joanna Lewis, who heads the science technology and international affairs programme at Georgetown University in Washington DC.
The president-elect has promised once again to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement which commits member countries to limiting global warming to 1.5–2 C above preindustrial levels. Trump’s administration had to wait until 2020 before officially leaving the agreement and Biden was able to rejoin it after taking office more than six months later. But under the rules of the agreement, the leaving process would take only one year this time around.
Source: What Trump’s election victory could mean for AI, climate and more
The Future of United States-China Partnerships: A Case Study of the Kennedy-Trump Failure of the Measles Epidemic
Kennedy had cast doubt on the vaccine-approval process, which could cause a resurgence in illnesses like measles, because he had become involved in the new administration. The person says people will get sick and die if Kennedy and Trump implement some of the things they say.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will appoint Kennedy to a position such as director of US Health and Human Services (HHS) — or whether the US Senate would approve it — but it’s clear that Kennedy will have Trump’s ear on health issues.
Emanuel says that support for global health will probably be greatly scaled back during Trump’s second term because of his past comments against the World Health Organization. Emanuel says that the United States is the key player in funding of global-health initiatives. This includes, for instance, a programme that aims to end the global AIDS epidemic. So it’s “hard to be optimistic” about the future, he adds.
During Trump’s first term, he banned people from a half-dozen countries that it said were “compromised by terrorism” and implemented the China Initiative which led to the arrest of scientists of Chinese heritage. The China Initiative was ended by the Biden administration, but they continued their efforts to guard against foreign interference in US research.
There might be at least one bright spot for United States-China partnerships. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is a foreign policy think tank in Washington DC, and Denis Simon thinks that a pact between the US and China on scientific cooperation is likely to be signed by the Biden administration before Trump’s second. A renewal of the agreement, although it is will probably be more limited in scope owing to increased US-China tensions, would show that “both governments give their blessing” to collaborations, Simon says.
