The US is spending $9 billion on a COVID19 vaccine. ITER is expected to cost around $65 billion total. Fusion is just a REALLY hard nut to crack. I think estimates put research costs on the order of $5-10 trillion dollars. That's with no guarantee of positive results either. It could be as much as $30 trillion dollars before we see commercially viable reactors.

For that amount of money we can tap the planet's mantle for geothermal energy, build liquid salt thorium reactors, and pay for everyone's health care with some left over to fund a nice 6th generation fighter jet.

Fusion energy is a worthy goal for humanity. However, barring some synergistic results from super conduction and plasma research causing a spot breakthrough, I doubt we will see commercial fusion this century.