Trump officials go all out to block carbon tax on shipping
By Sara Schonhardt | 10/16/2025 06:17 AM EDT
The U.S. tried to strong-arm nations into rejecting the measure. Now, the administration is pushing to make adoption harder.
Countries are on the verge of approving global rules to curb shipping pollution — but the Trump administration hasn’t given up on throwing a wrench in the process.
The International Maritime Organization is meeting this week and expected to sign off on a proposal that nations endorsed in April. The U.N. agency sets binding regulations for the global maritime industry, and the measure would ultimately put a tax on shipping emissions.
Several Trump officials have called the proposal a “European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations” and have sought to strong-arm nations into rejecting it by threatening tariffs and other trade barriers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on the social media site X on Wednesday that the U.S. would be a “hard NO” on the IMO measures and called on other nations to stand alongside the U.S., linking to an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that said the plan is an attempt by “climate-obsessed politicians to entrench their agenda before voters in democracies can kill it.”
https://www.eenews.net/articles/trump-officials-go-all-out-to-block-carbon-tax-on-shipping/