The US National Science Foundation reports the United States leads the world on research and development spending, but not by much. The NSF’s bi-annual study shows the US spent US$496bn on R&D in 2015, 26 per cent of the world total, but China accounted for 21 per cent, with expenditure increasing at an average 18 per cent per annum since 2000.

The US is also losing appeal for international graduate students in key technology disciplines, with numbers dropping by 13 per cent for computer science and 8 per cent in engineering between 2016 and 2017.