Freedom Line Blog

In our latest Liberty Update column, CFIF highlights America’s desperate need for more high-skilled science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent, and how the America COMPETES Act contains helpful provisions to meet that growing need.  We also highlight a study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which was named the world’s top defense and national security think tank detailing that need.  A portion in the CSIS study worth highlighting on Page 7 further illustrates just how willing STEM talent is to come to America, versus our chief geostrategic rival China:

While China has successfully boosted its domestic STEM output, America remains a far more attractive destination for international STEM talent.  In this domain of talent competition, China – despite big ambitions and significant investments – has not yet made large-scale gains.

International scientists consistently rate the United States as much more appealing than China.  Figure 5 presents the results from two surveys that asked international scientists and engineers where they would consider moving in the near future.  Although the surveys were held years apart (2012 versus 2019) and involved different fields (STEM broadly versus AI specifically), the results are consistent:  only about 10 percent of international scientists and engineers seemed open to moving to China, compared to nearly 60 percent for the United States.”

Think about that.  Almost 60% of international STEM talent would love to come to America.  Accordingly, it’s now a matter of getting them here to contribute their talents to our economy and innovation.