By Robert Bradley Jr.
“It was like a bunch of gangsters coming into the neighborhood and smashing windows and threatening shop owners … a shock-and-awe thuggery approach.” – Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D, Rhode Island)
The recent New York Times article, “Trump Officials Accused of Bullying Tactics to Kill a Climate Measure” (Lisa Friedman et al.: November 6, 2025) somehow forgets that politics is messy and confrontational. It did not start with Trump, and climate politics has long been a contact sport for the Progressive Left.
“Nations were poised to approve the first fee on pollution from ships. That’s when the Trump administration began the threats,” the article begins. Trump’s intervention was “extraordinary, even by the standards of the Trump administration’s combativeness, according to nine diplomats on its receiving end.”
The global climate taxers were nonplussed. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse complained about the administration’s “shock-and-awe thuggery approach.” Another complained about “the disproportionate use of force…. a cruise missile … to redress a traffic violation.” Hyperbole and naivete run rampant….
A Major Victory, in Fact
Yes, Trump used the powers of government–including non-market intervention–to block what the Times called a “fee.” The world’s first carbon dioxide (CO2) tax was an all-pain-no-gain on consumers, as well as a burden on shipping. And for what, temperature-wise and sea-level-wise? Lisa Friedman et al. can only report that proponents said that shipping’s three percent of global CO2 emissions (akin to aviation) was “expected to grow” and could “increase drastically by 2050.”
Perhaps the United Nations’s global government can work to stop international shipments of industrial wind turbines and electric vehicles instead.
Why Tax?
With biased articles like this, it is best to read from the bottom up, so to speak. The rationale for Trump’s decisive action was stated deep into the article:
“President Trump was clear, the United States will not adhere to any bogus international climate agreement that is not in the best interest of the American people,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. She said it was the I.M.O., not the Trump administration, that pressured nations to accept a bad policy. Mr. Trump “will not allow the I.M.O. to bully our country into propping up their Green Energy Scam,” she said.
The Climate Industrial Complex’s global whining aside, the essence of Trump’s victory for consumers and shipping can be appreciated from the following Press Release from the U.S. Department of State, “Taking Action to Defend America from the UN’s First Global Carbon Tax – the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) “Net-Zero Framework” (NZF)”. As jointly stated by Secretary of State Rubio, Secretary of Energy Wright, and Secretary of Transportation Duffy:
The United States will be moving to levy these remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations. We will fight hard to protect our economic interests by imposing costs on countries if they support the NZF. Our fellow IMO members should be on notice.
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Further proof that the Green Scam is all about money.
Also the U.S., in its true form, is a hurdle in the way of global Marxist governance.
What would the world be like today if Trump had not dodged the bullet intended for him?
It was about the UN setting up a multi-$billion slush fund to staff with bureaucratic energy/environmental idiots to finance additional UN “climate measures”, for additional slush funds.
The world would have been so screwed.
Whining, eco-idiot Whitehouse is opposing a new gas pipeline with domestic natural gas, which is direly needed in New England to keep electricity prices low.
As a hypocrite,
He thinks buying expensive LNG from Russia, brought here by French specialized ships, is OK
He thinks buying expensive wind electricity from foreign-built windmills, is OK
NEW GAS PIPELINE DIRELY NEEDED IN NEW ENGLAND TO PROVIDE STEADY POWER FOR AI AND OTHER MODERN NEEDS
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/new-gas-pipeline-direly-needed-in-new-england-to-provide-steady
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Sloganeering Replacing Rational Thinking
Most New England states have gone absolutely apeshit about environmental and other issues.
Rational thinking by independent STEM professionals is replaced with inane slogans by brainwashed nincompoops with signs at gatherings, as duly reported, ad nauseam, by the government-subsidized Corporate Media.
.
Environmental Lawfare
No state can make laws that reach beyond its borders to affect other states, countries, people, companies.
Every state attorney knows this. Every law student knows this.
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Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) has a provision that allows states to block federally approved projects, if they do not meet local environmental standards.
That provision likely would be declared unconstitutional by a Republican-leaning Supreme Court.
Trump has declared a National Energy Emergency
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New Natural Gas Pipeline
New England has needed a new gas pipeline from Pennsylvania to New England, already for about 20 years.
States trying to stop it may be in violation of interstate commerce laws
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The gas pipeline is direly needed to save the near-zero/real-growth New England economy from brown-outs/black-outs in winter.
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It is highly likely, New England will have much higher electricity prices, c/kWh, due to:
1) increased, weather-dependent, grid-disturbing, environmentally destructive, highly subsidized, wind and solar systems on the grid, and
2) increased super-expensive, highly subsidized, short-life, battery systems to counteract the ups and downs of wind/solar outputs, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365
.
By now, it should be abundantly obvious, no additional offshore windmills will be built for at least the next 10 years, if Vance becomes President after Trump.
Weather Conditions
In the US, the South is the worst area for onshore wind, New England is next worst.
In the US, the cloudy/rainy/foggy Washington State area is the worst area for solar
This has been known for at least 4 decades by states and the federal government.
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-systems-foisted-onto-a-brainwashed-public-1
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People are brainwashed to love wind and solar. They do not know by how much they screw themselves by voting for the woke folks who push them onto everyone. Their ignorance is exploited by the woke folks
.
Owned/controlled by European governments and companies, would be a serious disadvantage for the US regarding environmental impact, national security, economic competitiveness, and sovereignty
.
Western countries cajoling Third World countries into Wind/Solar, and loaning them high-interest money to do so, will forever re-establish a colonial-style bondage on those recently free countries.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the traditional generators, as they inefficiently (more CO2/kWh) counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDP.
.
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
The UK and Germany are hitting the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
.
Nuclear, gas, coal and reservoir hydro plants are the only rational way forward.
Ignore CO2, because greater CO2 ppm in atmosphere is essential for: 1) increased green flora to increase fauna all over the world, and 2) increased crop yields to better feed 8 billion people.
.
Net-zero by 2050 to-reduce CO2 is a super-expensive suicide pact, to:
1) increase command/control by governments, and
2) enable the moneyed elites to become more powerful and richer, at the expense of all others, by using the foghorn of the government-subsidized/controlled Corporate Media to spread scare-mongering slogans and brainwash people, already for at least 40 years; extremely biased CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, NBC ABC, CBS come to mind.
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Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit 10%; Federal tax credit of 30%; State tax credit; other incentives up to 10%);
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation to write off of the entire project;
3) Loan interest deduction
.
Utilities forced to pay at least:
15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
10 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from largersolar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect far-flung W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which means more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Total ADDER 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 = 11 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
.
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 30 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 41 c/kWh, no subsidies
Offshore wind full cost of electricity FCOE = 15 c/kWh + 11 c/kWh = 26 c/kWh, 50% subsidies
The 11 c/kWh is for various measures required by wind and solar; power plant-to-landfill cost basis.
This compares with 7 c/kWh + 3 c/kWh = 10 c/kWh from existing gas, coal, nuclear, large reservoir hydro plants.
.
The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage is off the charts.
Europe has near-zero, real-growth GDP. Its economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
A cancer will always grow bigger.The only cure is to cut it out of your body as soon as possible.
From the above article:
“Trump’s intervention was ‘extraordinary . . ., according to nine diplomats on its receiving end’.”
What? I’m to be concerned about what upsets nine diplomats???
Get real.
Besides, it doesn’t take a genius to figure that this international “shipping tax” would be the foot-in-the-door to beginning a wide range of international taxation for all sorts of reasons, not all necessarily related to climate change™. Some almost-certain examples:
— a tax on all international commerce (land, sea and air) to pay for international refugees,
— a tax on all international commerce to help fund the fight against homelessness around the world,
— a tax on all international commerce to fund the UN and its IPCC,
— a tax on all international commerce to the fund the “fight to stop climate change™ “, despite nobody having any idea what specifically that phrase means and at the same time admitting that the voluntary commitments made by 195 nations under the Paris Agreement of 2015 were not worth the paper they were written on,
— a tax on all international commerce to fund studies on how to further tax all international commerce, with of course the need for annual conferences to meet in person and for the attendees to make babbling speeches to each other . . . exactly along the lines of the 30 Conferences of Parties held to date and sponsored by the UN.
Again, get real (in understanding how the “beasts” want to be fed).
Spot on
What many do not understand is that regardless of the action by the US, any country which disagreed with the IMO GHG initiatives could by making an official objection ensure that the regulations do not apply to ships flying their flags. See the table for the Tacit acceptance procedure near the bottom of the page on the following link and look at the Entry into force section.
https://www.imo.org/en/about/conventions/pages/default.aspx
The US did not so much bully as provide a rallying point for countries that would have liked to oppose the measure but did not have the cojones to do so alone.
Countries that wanted to impose a carbon tax regime could easily have done what the EU did with its EU ETS scheme. The fact that they haven’t is very revealing.
Of the 110,000 ships in international trade, about 82 are US flagged. Another 130 or so are in US coastwise trade which would not be affected by the proposed tax. Virtually all of the goods imported to the US by ship are carried in foreign flag vessels. Restricting US opposition to the tax to US flag vessels would be useless.
True. But the purpose of the tax was to fund UN jobs and expand another layer of government.
Unelected UN bureaucrats.
Because the rich countries use lots of energy…the UN policy makers have always viewed carbon taxes, of some type, as a way to transfer money from rich countries to poorer countries that can be (sort of) within their policy jurisdiction. They aren’t really concerned about the environment…The rest of us need to be concerned that the money gets to those who need it, not just warlords and white-collar thieves disguising themselves as aid distributors.
Furthermore:
“America relies on ocean shipping to transport nearly 80 percent of its international trade. Yet so few large U.S. shipyards remain that they produce only about 0.04 percent of the world’s oceangoing commercial vessels. Meanwhile, nearly 99 percent of our exports and imports are carried by foreign-owned shipping companies—almost all of them operating as cartels.”
— source: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2025/06/30/how-to-save-american-shipbuilding
Sheldon Whinehouse should go online and order some cheese to go with his whine.
Is Whitehouse a pawn, or a prawn…. or both.
What a sad pathetic little excuse for a human, he is. !
Bought is the word, like a knock-off Rolex in a back alley. He went cheap, probably for a case of vodka or something of similar value.
He is just pissed that he never got the political position his last name promised.
Separated by a lot more than a common[ish] language (GB Shaw)…
“President Trump was clear, the United States will not adhere to any bogus international climate agreement that is not in the best interest of the American people”
“PM Keir Starmer was clear, the UK is still all in.”
As the Fake News Bureau (formerly the BBC) reports:
Keir Starmer warned that the “consensus is gone” on fighting climate change, but that the UK was still “all in”. Prince William called for “urgent optimism” and unity between nations. – FNB
William is the next in line, not just for the throne, but leading the environmental/climate charge.
“I get outraged by the inaction. As I’m in a position of leadership, I feel I could do a lot more, if given that ability so I don’t understand why those who have the levers don’t.
“That’s what really upsets me and keeps me awake at night.” – Yahoo
It runs in the family just as baldness does. The UK is on a very different path to that of the US. And relations could be better.
The U.S. would be on the same path as the UK if Kamala had been elected.
The problem is radical leftists. Whenever they get political power, they screw things up royally, and this climate change scam puts them in a position to really screw things up bigtime, to the point of bankrupting a country.
And that’s what they are doing in the UK, but the U.S. was saved this time by the voters, who rejected the radical Left, although not by enough to make me feel comfortable. There are a lot of deluded people out there.
The jibe on baldness was unnecessary. My hair started its departure when I was 20 that was 55 years ago and comments like that don’t improve an argument
another old baldy agrees 🙂
See above
it was no jibe. It’s a fact.
How would I know how much hair you do or do not have?
It was unnecessary to the discussion.
As does any knock on someone’s looks. But there are a lot of immature commenters here.
The horrors of inbreeding. More than hair loss, it involves cerebral lobe malformation. Leader of what exactly? A fake church? A garden tour? A lemming free fall? Watch out for that cliff, Jolly Old England.
Haemophilia
If anyone is running a protection racket it’s the UN’s IMO. Send them money and they will protect us from the weather, but we all know they can’t. Sheldon Whitehouse is an agent for the IMO protection racket.
Is IMO In My Opinion or International Money Order?
Idiots, Morons, Oy!
International Mafia Organization.
Imaginary Monarchy of Oligarchs?
Knock them dead, Donald!
Taylor Rogers, said in a statement. Mr. Trump “will not allow the I.M.O. to bully our country into propping up their Green Energy Scam.
______________________________________________________________________________
Did President Trump actually say scam instead of hoax? I hope he did as hoax is akin to pranks
and practical jokes. Scam is much closer to shakedowns and extortion which is what’s going on.
He said “con”. Which fits.
Sheldon Whitehouse is another idiot who needs to retire. At this point he is more an enemy agent than a US Representative.
And guaranteed if Trump didn’t put a stop to this bullshit, the Democrats would rush to blame the effect on prices to “Trump’s policies.” You can bet your last dollar on that.
Trump is showing the United Nations who the boss is.
The United Nations does not rule the United States. Get that through your thick UN skulls.
Well, the UN has been ruling your country since 2008 for all but 5 years.
Which is why any thinking and patriotic American despises the UN and would prefer it off US soil…or actually just plain gone. It’s a useless artifact trying to sieze power and rule.
It is the most useful artifact in history of mankind
considering its level of power and control .
To the downvoters-
Show me a single thing that has been more effective and created that little resistance while acting in the open field?
I can name at best 1,while you probably never heard of it.
So name one or more…we Yanks want to know since we’re paying for most of it…inquiring minds, doncha know? By the way, we’re owed a shitpot of money for parking tickets by UN grifters.
Exactly how many wars did the UN prevent and or stop since it war formed?
It may indeed by the most useful artifact in history, but that is not really saying much. COP30 follows the model of the UN general assembly.
Correction (tyo): since it was formed?
It is long past time to put the UN building in NYC on a barge and float it down the East River out to sea.
Turn it into a hostel for veterans; plenty of room for homeless vets, and a good VA center for injured, recuperating, and PTSD vets too. So much room wasted on the UN clowns.
I was wondering if the general assembly hall would make a good movie theater?
We need to fix the escalator first.
The UN is employing its control over the EU Commission to introduce levies carefully worded to suggest they are safety net measures to help in times of climate stress impacts. The EU volunteered the starter amount into the fund of €250million a nothing amount but the longest march begins with a single step in a specific direction.
Be of no doubt this will simply be the beginning of a growing legislated handover of tax payers money into the UN fiscal pot, and into their control.
“It was like a bunch of gangsters coming into the neighborhood and smashing windows and threatening shop owners” This is exactly how Democrats and ecotards have been behaving for decades.
Why is it that democrats love all taxes called “Levies” but hate all taxes called “Tariffs”?
Has nothing to do with tariffs, taxes or levies. It is Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Only those they did not think of first.
Some additional information on what is at stake in this initiative was provided by US UN ambassador Mike Waltz in an interview.
NEW YORK — U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Breitbart News exclusively of how President Donald Trump and his cabinet rallied at the 11th hour to thwart globalists from creating a “global green tax” that he argued would have created a “U.N. climate slush fund.”
“If we had coal fired, gas fired, oil fired ships, this global organization was going to impose a fine on those shipping companies, of course, and that would have been to the tune of a billion dollars a month globally that would have been passed on to the consumers, obviously,” Waltz said. “That money then would have would have formed a U.N.-run green climate slush fund to the tune of $12 to $15 billion a year that would have turned around and done more and more of this. It really would have been the first global green tax and I think we would have felt it through inflation. We would have felt it on our consumer shelves and it would have been yet another assault on the American oil and gas industry.
https://rclutz.com/2025/11/04/world-dodged-un-climate-bullet-thanks-to-us/
Indeed. Never let the camel get a nose under the tent.
Not sure why but I find that very funny. 🙂
I’m not sure of the etymology of the expression, but if I think about “what is the camel” and “what is the tent” too much I can relive the same shock I experienced when decoding the actual meanings of the lyrics of rock/pop songs I liked as a young person.
There’s a fable about an Arab, his camel, his tent and a cold night.
The Arab is in his tent and the camel is outside.
Camel says to the Arab, it’s cold out here, can I just stick my nose into the side of the tent so that I can warm it up.
Arab consents.
Camel says, I”m still cold, can I stick my head into the tent so I can warm it up.
Arab consents.
Long story short, the camel is inside the tent and since there is no longer any room in the tent, the Arab is now sleeping outside, in the cold.
That’s a much cleaner story than I expected – i hope it’s the right one.
Thidwick the Moose, Middle East Edition.
Give a mouse a cookie….
A moose once bit my sister…
A “carbon tax” is a bad idea in any form.
But the worst part of this is that the UN would have been able to tax the world.
Do we really want the UN to have that authority?
Off topic – from today’s UK Telegraph:
The overall impression of the Prescott memo is of an organisation so blinkered by a uniform ideology that it cannot be trusted on subjects as important as Donald Trump, the Arab-Israeli conflict, British history and anything to do with race.
I’d add, also anything to do with climate and weather.
At the moment they are all claiming there is nothing to see, this is just some far right conspiracy or coup by BBC haters. People who hate the world’s most trusted news organization. Because they are wicked.
Nothing to do with the avalanche of fake news on all of the above subjects!
“the world’s most trusted news organization“
Whitehouse whining about the White House. Chuckle. It is fun to watch them squirm.
Sounds like your average Democrat voter.
It was an offshoot of screaming out Nazi, which is everyday language of Dem leadership and Dem voters.
Whitehouse is yet another Dem who doesn’t have a mirror in his house.
Nevermind.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse . . . one of the dimmer bulbs in Senate chambers.
“Outhouse” sure has a way with words.
Whitehead… as in “pimple” on society.
I am constantly astounded by President Trump’s unwavering determination to eliminate the stupid destructive policies of the leftists and his creative resourcefulness to use every means at his disposal to do so. He is a man of his word and a man of action like we’ve never seen in the White House. I wish we had dozens with even half his resolve and efficacy in Congress.
With every President as far back as I can remember (Eisenhower), there have been policies I agree with and those I disapprove. Likewise there have been implementation processes agreeable and disagreeable.
Trump is a mix, but mostly agreeable on the policy side.
While I understand is tactics, using speech to move people, deal maker tactics I have seen all over, there are only a few times I have him speak as a statesman and I wish the percentage would go up a tick or two.
Correction (typo): While I understand his tactics,
“Nations were poised to approve the first fee on pollution from ships.”
CO2 is not pollution. It is the beginning of the food chain for all life on earth, and is still at semi-starvation levels.
It is the international governments and organizations that are the thugs. It has come to the point where we should stop cooperating with them and certainly stop funding them.
Thugs? Nah. Mafia. The Climate Syndicate indeed.
There are probably many factors contributing to climate change but CO2 (burning fossil fuels) isn’t one of them.
The observation is that, for about a decade, the measured average global water vapor increase is substantially more (about twice or more around year 2000) than possible from just average global SST increase. Thus, WV increase was substantially driven by factors other than temperature increase. Because the only significant effect that CO2 could have on climate is temperature increase, CO2 is ruled out as a significant contributor to climate change.
Nit
the only significant effect that CO2 could have on climate is a trivial temperature increase
A half billion years of proxy data needs to be ignored to think that CO2 has a significant effect on climate.
Funny how we have gotten locked into climate = temperature.
Quite an oversimplification.
It’s true for CO2.
Anybody who thinks that the USA will place itself under a foreign tax regime, particularly one controlled by the UN, is deluded. Any US government which agreed to this lunacy would be seen as treasonous at best. Well done President Trump but not surprising at all.
Next step is to address the “carbon tax” on airlines. CORSIA being a front runner.
“Nations were poised to approve the first fee on pollution from ships.”
The biggest issue with that statement is one is required to accept a false definition that CO2 is “climate pollution.”