Guest essay by Linnea Lueken
A recent article at Bloomberg, “Trump’s Tariff Wall Takes a Curious Woke Turn” implies that it is hypocritical for President Trump to levy tariffs on Brazil over deforestation, while saying that climate change is a hoax. This is nonsense. Climate activism does not hold a monopoly over environmental concerns or at least, it shouldn’t. It is perfectly reasonable to support other environmental causes, especially tangible causes like protection of the rainforest, while being skeptical of man-made climate change and all the burdensome and often authoritarian policies that are supposed to somehow stop it.
The Bloomberg article’s subheader is “A president known for calling climate change a hoax is threatening Brazil with tariffs over deforestation,” implying that this is hypocritical. The author goes on to say:
President Donald Trump has shown few signs in his second term that he cares much about the future of the Amazon rainforest. Nor are there any indications that ending either corruption overseas or the use of forced labor are White House priorities.
Yet in recent weeks all three of those things have become justifications for proposed tariffs put forward by the Trump administration. So what should we make of that? Are Trump’s economic wars suddenly embracing a new humanitarian and environmentalist agenda? Or, just maybe, are we seeing a clever strategy unfolding that may make Trump’s tariffs more politically durable?”
The Trump administration is hypocritical, suggests Bloomberg, because Trump “called climate change a hoax and pulled the US out of international talks, axed financing for wind farms and just funded the first US coal-fired power plant in a generation.”
But just because one is skeptical of climate policy, which is what all of the above complaints are connected to, does not mean that other environmental concerns don’t matter. If the President does not believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases are causing weather to get worse, which he is correct about, then why shouldn’t he allow for more investment in reliable, cheap energy like coal, over expensive and ironically environmentally destructive wind power?
Conservationists hold that land and resources should be conserved for use, not preserved untouchably, and illegal deforestation, like poaching (illegal hunting) is certainly something that falls under the concerns of conservationists.
Organizations like the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation promote environmental and species protection, but do not hold to the theory of a looming man-created climate catastrophe which requires world economies to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
It is true that the Trump administration did say that, among other issues, Brazil has failed to combat illegal deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, and also has levied unbalanced tariffs on U.S. ethanol exports.
Interestingly, the ethanol and deforestation issues are linked. Some Brazilian corn ethanol producers have recently come under suspicion of burning illegally clear-cut native wood in their plants because it is cheaper than using planted trees. Similarly, Brazilian sugarcane ethanol plantations were allowed to encroach on old-growth rainforest so that the country could increase ethanol production to meet climate goals. This is a case of climate policy coming up against traditional environmentalism: slashing-and-burning the rainforest to make more ethanol fuel, or deforesting portions of the rainforest to build a highway for a climate conference.
It’s possible President Trump is using the deforestation angle cynically, as he is often known to do, but it is nonsense to say that concern about the rainforest requires one to also toe the line on climate policy.
The author of the Bloomberg piece, Shawn Donnan, seems to be more interested in ribbing the President by accusing him of being “woke” than making a coherent argument. Scoffing that it’s some kind of hypocrisy to be worried about deforestation of the rainforest while calling out the scam that is climate alarmism only demonstrates Bloomberg’s and Donnan’s ignorance of the issues.
