Trump, with tariffs and threats, tries to strong-arm nations to retreat on climate goals

President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission speaks with President Donald Trump during a meeting at Trump’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland, July 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. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times)

By Lisa Friedman

President Donald 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.

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 Tuesday, 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,” 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,” said Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s former special envoy for climate action.

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.

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 spokesperson, said 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 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,” Morgan said.

The arm-twisting goes far beyond Trump’s actions during his first term, some observers said. As he did in 2017, 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, 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, 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.

“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, 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,’” 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.”