It makes no sense to people who want to live in a globally-competitive democracy. But other people don't share that goal, and the moves make perfect sense in their context.

I think this is an important point. Think about the mindset it takes to understand this proposal as a "great" thing for America. What would you have to believe? What values would you have to change in order for a foreign scientist ban to be "great". Be sure to try to limit you understanding of science to wha you might receive from watching the most popular cable news channel as your definitive source of information.

This is not the mindset of all MAGA but it's a difficult exercise for most thoughtful engineers to try to live in that mind space for a while. It's a very different world, and I can only do it because I have many conversations with family members to draw on.

for comparison's sake, how many foreigners work in Chinese labs?