Total annual US public research into fusion that is not ITER or this project (which does not come from the fusion pot. As others have said this project was built for weapons research) is about $300 million per year[1]. We, as a country, do not give a rats ass about having fusion as a power source. VC funding recently (for the first time) supported many fusion startup ideas at or above the $300 million level. Too bad ZIRP is over and private funding is now likely to dry up. The recent private funding in fusion was really amazing. Many new ideas and methods are being tried. This is what fusion research needed. Not spending billions on magnets and cement in France that is ITER. Hopefully some of them have a long enough runway to get promising work done and get follow-up funding.

[1]http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2021/ph241/margraf1/images...