The Trump administration is ramping up the pressure on the European Union to repeal or overhaul a regulation on corporations’ greenhouse gas pollution — in the latest example of the United States’ willingness to wield its economic might against an international climate initiative.
It comes less than a week after the U.S. scored a surprising victory over a proposed United Nations climate fee on shipping, in what one Trump Cabinet member described Wednesday as an “all hands on deck” lobbying blitz.
In its newest effort, the Energy Department joined the government of Qatar in warning the EU that it’s risking higher prices for “critical energy supplies” unless it alters or deletes its Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.
“It is our genuine belief, as allies and friends of the EU, that the CSDDD will cause considerable harm to the EU and its citizens, as it will lead to higher energy and other commodity prices, and have a chilling effect on investment and trade,” the department and the Qataris said in an open letter Wednesday to European heads of state and EU members.
During a press conference later in the day, European Commission spokesperson Markus Lammert declined to discuss the European Parliament’s negotiations over the climate directive.
The new pressure on the EU comes after months of attempts by President Donald Trump and his appointees to blunt climate regulations at home and abroad that threaten to impinge on U.S. “dominance” in fossil fuels. And lately he’s succeeded in drawing some countries to the United States’ side.
‘Win for the world’
On Friday, U.S. pressure succeeded in thwarting a proposal by U.N.’s International Maritime Organization to impose the first worldwide tax on climate pollution from shipping. The maritime body had been widely expected to adopt the shipping fee at a meeting in London, but instead it postponed the initiative for at least a year.
Fellow petro-giants Russia and Saudi Arabia lobbied for the pause, and EU members Greece and Cyprus helped that effort by abstaining from the final vote.
The aftermath of that vote continued to affect European climate diplomacy this week, temporarily upending internal EU discussions about the bloc’s negotiating position for next month’s COP30 summit in Brazil.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins were exultant Wednesday in outlining the pressure they had brought to bear to block the maritime fee. Wright said he phoned 20 countries while Rollins handled nations such as Antigua and Jamaica in what she characterized as an “all hands on deck” effort. The effort also included Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Wright said.
Wright added that he had personally written a Truth Social message that Trump posted the night before the vote, in which the president warned that the “United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping.” (Trump changed “three or four words on it,” the secretary said.)
“We’re going to come back to realistic views on energy,” Wright said at an event hosted by America First Policy Institute. “That’s a win not just for America, that’s a win for the world.”
European climate pressure
The EU has already said it will not scrap its corporate climate directive, though it may dismantle a civil liability provision in a bid to simplify the law. But revising the directive has been a challenge for Europe because lawmakers are divided on how far to roll back sustainability reporting obligations for companies.
The rule, which the EU put into force last year but still needs to be adopted by member states, would require companies to identify and address adverse human rights and environmental impacts of their actions inside and outside Europe.
Europe’s move to wean itself off Russian energy supplies since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has forced the continent to increase its reliance on U.S. liquefied natural gas imports. But U.S. gas producers have warned that the climate directive will increase the cost of doing business with customers in the EU.
In the letter, DOE and Qatar said the climate directive “poses a significant risk to the affordability and reliability of critical energy supplies for households and businesses across Europe and an existential threat to the future growth, competitiveness, and resilience of the EU’s industrial economy.”
The governments also advise the EU to repeal the directive or, barring that, rewrite key provisions dealing with the penalties and civil liabilities for companies that don’t comply with the regulation. The U.S. and Qatar also want the Europeans to change language requiring companies to provide transition plans for climate change mitigation.
Marianne Gros contributed to this report from Brussels.
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