The role of the state in the wealth of nations is under-estimated by Libertarian dogma. One of the USAs last remaining advantages over China are some of the areas of research where it still leads. Trump is acknowledging the imminent insolvency of the empire by cost cutting seeking to enable the roll over of the ~$7T USTs required before Christmas. Longer term the decline and ultimate insolvency is probably unavoidable. Get those 'crypto' offramp safe havens up and running before the Yuan reverse engineers global banking hegemony.