Nevertheless, pumping the brakes here is sensible.
I get the sense that researchers feel a certain injustice that geopolitics is affecting scientific decisions by their funding bodies. Funding should be decided on the scientific merit of their proposals. In a vacuum, that makes sense.
Seen more widely, though, the decisions of the NIH and similar funding bodies are shot through with political considerations. For example, it would be hard for a physician scientist to attend a conference in the last few years where considerable resources were not devoted to equity issues.
My point here is that we already contextualize what work we fund by political decisions, for better or worse. In this circumstances, we continue to do so, but we in particular pause funding on research that may, in some form, be responsible for the deaths of millions of people and the disruption of lives of billions. That's a sensible choice.