Jesús Soriano, union leader in the scientific rebellion against Trump: ‘You’ll go to a restaurant and won’t know if the meat is contaminated or not’

Workers at one of the world’s leading scientific institutions — the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) — launched a rebellion against the Trump administration on Tuesday. A letter signed by 150 employees denounces “the systematic dismantling” of this government agency, which in its 75-year history has funded the development of thousands of projects that have changed human life, including the internet, the Google search engine, the CRISPR gene-editing tool, smartphones, and magnetic resonance imaging. The list of 150 signatories reflects the climate of fear surrounding the irascible personality of Trump and his coterie: all names have been anonymized except one: Jesús Soriano, a 57-year-old doctor born in Crevillent, Alicante, who chairs Local 3403 of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the agency’s majority union. The Spaniard — who became a naturalized U.S. citizen two decades ago — and his colleagues warn that the 56% budget cut announced by the Trump administration threatens to “paralyze American science” and precipitate a brain drain of the NSF. Soriano, who has worked at the agency since 2012 and has helped create companies that have raised more than $1 billion in investment, speaks to EL PAÍS via videoconference from Virginia.

Question. It’s chilling to see that all the signatories’ names are blacked out, out of fear, except for one: Jesús Soriano. Do you fear reprisals?

Answer. There’s always a fear of retaliation, but when you’re a union leader, you’re expected to take risks, to stand up and fight for your people. Fear can’t paralyze you. Part of the power of unions in a negotiation is for the manager to see that the union member is crazy, that he’s not afraid, that he’s going to go to the press.

Q. Are you protected, or can you be fired tomorrow?

A. I’m the union president, and that gives me certain protections. Firing a union president is retaliation and would be illegal.

Q. In the open letter, you claim that the 56% cut in the NSF budget would cripple American science. What implications would this have?

A. The NSF supports all disciplines in science except biomedical clinical research: geology, education, advanced semiconductor manufacturing, cybernetics... In the case of engineering and computer science, we give 80% of all the money to universities. We didn’t create the internet, but we played a very important role. And the same with artificial intelligence. These are just a few examples.

The NSF is cutting itself open

Q. The president of the NSF’s governing body, the National Science Council, was Spanish engineer Darío Gil from May 2024 to April 2025.

A. I haven’t spoken to him. Darío Gil was in charge of R&D at IBM and studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; he’s a phenomenal person. He chaired the National Science Council, which is more concerned with the governance of the NSF than with day-to-day management. There are about 20 councilors. Maybe on a diplomatic level, they’re very active in trying to protect employees, but the truth is, he was president, and they were firing people because the White House was asking them to fire more people. And the council members haven’t said anything publicly. I wrote to them, one by one, saying, “Hey, say something, help us.”

Q. Have you been disappointed by Gil and the rest of the councilors?

A. It’s always been a very formalistic organization, but it’s not prepared for a constitutional crisis like the one we’re facing now. Employees complain that the White House calls the NSF and says, “Cut off all aid to Harvard University.” Based on what law can you do that? “Cut it because I say so.” Where’s the National Science Council? Sure, they’re practicing diplomacy, trying to solve problems behind the scenes, but we unions have to speak the truth in public.

What’s happening in the United States is a degradation of democracy

Q. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency laid off more than 10% of the NSF staff.

A. On February 18, orders were given to fire more than 200 employees. Many were taken to a room to be read a letter dictated by the Department of Government Efficiency, stating that they were being fired for lack of performance. The reality is that at the NSF, people are working flat out. I work nights and weekends; we work nonstop. That day, more than 200 people were fired, and we raised hell, working with the American Federation of Government Employees nationally, because it was happening in other government departments and agencies. We took it to court, and the NSF reversed course and reinstated about 100 of the fired workers. We’ve also faced the dilemma posed by Elon Musk: either you leave now and I’ll pay you five months’ salary, or we’ll fire you. It’s a campaign of intimidation, with a total erosion of labor rights. The NSF is cutting itself open. Here we have people who are national leaders in their fields, but those geniuses are leaving. In the union, we estimate we’ve already lost at least 400. It’s a brain drain.

Q. How would you define what is happening?

A. What’s happening in the United States is a degradation of democracy. I speak as president of the union, of course. There are attitudes, norms, and values that prevent corruption, and they’re fraying. They just announced they’re going to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency labs, which measure levels of pollution, poisons, chemicals, carcinogens in water... If you eliminate that information, what kind of regulation are you going to have? You’ll go to a restaurant and you won’t know if the meat is contaminated or not. They’ve halted programs just because they had the word “Black” or the word “woman.” They eliminated a gut microbe diversity project because it had the word “diversity.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition