Trump, With Tariffs and Threats, Tries to Strong-Arm Nations to Retreat on Climate Goals

 

Trump, With Tariffs and Threats, Tries to Strong-Arm Nations to Retreat on Climate Goals

 

The president has made no secret of his distaste for wind and solar in America. Now he’s taking his fossil fuel agenda overseas.

 

Lisa Friedman

By Lisa Friedman

Reporting from Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-international-pressure-climate-oil.html

Aug. 27, 2025

 

President Trump is not only working to stop a transition away from fossil fuels in the United States, he is pressuring other countries to relax their pledges to fight climate change and instead burn more oil, gas and coal.

 

Mr. Trump, who has joined with Republicans in Congress to shred federal support for electric vehicles and for solar and wind energy, is applying tariffs, levies and other mechanisms of the world’s biggest economy to induce other countries to burn more fossil fuels. His animus is particularly focused on the wind industry, which is a well-established and growing source of electricity in several European countries as well as in China and Brazil.

 

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he was trying to educate other nations. “I’m trying to have people learn about wind real fast, and I think I’ve done a good job, but not good enough because some countries are still trying,” Mr. Trump said. He said countries were “destroying themselves” with wind energy and said, “I hope they get back to fossil fuels.”

 

Two weeks ago, the administration promised to punish countries — by applying tariffs, visa restrictions and port fees — that vote for a global agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector.

 

Days later in Geneva, the Trump administration joined Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries to oppose limits on the production of petroleum-based plastics, which have exploded in use in recent years and are polluting waterways, harming wildlife and have even been detected in the human brain.

 

Last month, the Trump administration struck a trade deal with the European Union in which it agreed to reduce some tariffs if the bloc purchased $750 billion in American oil and gas over three years. That deal has raised concerns in some European countries because it would conflict with plans to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the burning of which is the main driver of climate change.

 

“They are clearly using various tools in an attempt to increase the use of fossil fuels around the world instead of decrease,” Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s former special envoy for climate action, said.

 

Also last month, Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned that the United States could pull out of the International Energy Agency after the organization predicted that global oil demand would peak this decade instead of continue to climb.

 

Mr. Wright told Europeans in April that they faced a choice between the “freedom and sovereignty” of abundant fossil fuels and the policies of “climate alarmism” that would make them less prosperous.

 

Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Trump’s goal was “restoring America’s energy dominance, ensuring energy independence to protect our national security and driving down costs for American families and businesses,” and added, “The Trump Administration will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals.”

 

Energy experts and European officials called the level of pressure Mr. Trump is exerting on other countries worrisome. Last year, the hottest on record, was the first calendar year in which the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, above preindustrial levels. Along with that came deadly heat, severe drought and devastating wildfires. This year is on track to be the second- or third-hottest on record, according to data from several agencies.

 

Scientists widely agree that to avoid worsening consequences of climate change, countries need to rapidly transition away from oil, gas and coal to clean energy sources like wind, solar, geothermal power and hydropower.

 

“At this moment in time it is absolutely imperative that countries double down, triple down, on their collaboration in the face of the climate crisis to not allow the active efforts for a fossil fuel world by the Trump administration succeed,” Ms. Morgan said.

 

Mr. Trump routinely mocks the established science of climate change and his administration has issued a report, written by five researchers who reject the scientific consensus on climate change, arguing that hundreds of the world’s leading experts have overstated the risks of a warming planet. The president also has made no secret of his disgust for wind turbines and solar panels.

 

Those disparagements don’t end at the water’s edge.

 

In July, Mr. Trump visited his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, where 14 years ago he tried unsuccessfully to stop construction of an offshore wind farm that could be seen from another Trump golf resort in Aberdeen.

 

During that visit, Mr. Trump met with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, to discuss trade. He denounced wind power as a “con job.” Ms. von der Leyen sat expressionless next to Mr. Trump during a news conference after their meeting as the president falsely claimed wind turbines drive birds “loco.”

 

In a separate meeting with Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain that week, Mr. Trump called wind energy “a disaster.”

 

Wind accounts for about 20 percent of the electricity mix in Europe, and E.U. countries plan to increase that to more than 50 percent by 2050.

 

“Wind needs massive subsidies, and you are paying in Scotland and in U.K., and in all over the place where they have them, massive subsidies to have these ugly monsters all over the place,” Mr. Trump said in his meeting with Mr. Starmer.

 

The arm-twisting goes far beyond Mr. Trump’s actions during his first term, some observers said. As he did in 2017, Mr. Trump in January withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement, a global pact among nearly 200 countries to fight climate change. But during the first term, Mr. Trump primarily focused his energy policy on withdrawing the United States from global discussions about climate change while he promoted domestic fossil fuel production.

 

This time around,  the administration is “actively trying to undermine countries” on global warming, said David L. Goldwyn, president of Goldwyn Global Strategies, an energy consulting firm.

 

Several diplomats from other countries said that the administration has used increasingly aggressive tactics to influence international energy policies.

 

In February, Mr. Wright addressed a conference in London via video and called net zero (when the amount of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere is equal to or less than the amount removed) a “sinister goal” and criticized a British law to reach net zero by 2050.

 

In March, the Trump administration denounced the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted by nations unanimously in 2015 and include ending poverty and hunger, and addressing climate change. The administration said “the government of the United States must refocus on the interests of Americans,” and course-correct on things like “climate ideology.”

 

The Trump administration declined to attend global negotiations this summer that are a precursor to annual United Nations climate talks to be held in Brazil in November.

 

It also skipped an April meeting of the International Maritime Organization where the world’s largest shipping countries agreed to impose a minimum fee of $100 for every ton of greenhouse gases emitted by ships above certain thresholds as a way of curbing emissions. The body had been expected to formally adopt the fee in October.

 

But the administration’s announcement this month that it would reject the maritime organization deal shocked many with its blunt promise that the United States would “not hesitate to retaliate or explore remedies for our citizens” against other countries that support the shipping fee.

 

Meanwhile, virtually all of the Trump administration’s trade deals include requirements that the trading partners buy U.S. oil and gas.

 

South Korea promised to buy $100 billion worth of liquefied natural gas over an unstated period of time. Japan is also expected to invest $550 billion in the United States, partially focused on “energy infrastructure production.” A White House statement said that the money would include liquefied natural gas and advanced fuels. The administration said the United States and Japan also were planning a “major expansion of U.S. energy exports to Japan.” That is widely believed to be a reference to a proposed $44 billion project to ship gas to Asia from the North Slope of Alaska.

 

Europe narrowly avoided a trade war with Mr. Trump by agreeing, among other things, to purchase $750 billion in crude oil, natural gas, other petroleum derivatives and nuclear reactor fuel over three years.

 

On an annual basis, that would amount to more than three times the amount the bloc bought last year from the United States.

 

“You see a more systematic attempt to be a fossil fuel first strategy to everything that they do,” said Jake Schmidt, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

 

The administration may slow the transition to clean energy by other countries but cannot stop it, Mr. Schmidt said. Most countries that signed the Paris Agreement will submit more ambitious targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations this year, although some may temper those plans because of the U.S. position, he said.

 

Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research organization, argued that the Trump administration was doing the right thing by pressuring countries to reject renewable energy.

 

“Europe is coming to the United States saying, ‘Help defend us against Russia, help us with Ukraine,’” Ms. Furchtgott-Roth said. “Where at the same time, they’re spending $350 billion a year on green energy investments that are slowing their economies.”

 

“It doesn’t seem to make very much sense to the Trump administration,” she said, adding, “I think we’re going to see more pressure.”

 

A correction was made on Aug. 27, 2025: An earlier version of this article described incorrectly the setting in which Chris Wright, the energy secretary, called net-zero targets a “sinister goal.” He made the remarks remotely, via video, not in person in London.

When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more

 

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.