President Donald Trump is no longer content to stand aloof from the global alliance trying to combat climate change. His new goal is to demolish it — and replace it with a new coalition reliant on U.S. fossil fuels. Trump’s increasingly assertive energy diplomacy is one of the biggest challenges awaiting the world leaders, diplomats and business luminaries gathering for a United Nations summit in Brazil to try to advance the fight against global warming. The U.S. president will not be there — unlike the leaders of countries including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, who will speak before delegates from nearly 200 nations on Thursday and Friday. But his efforts to undermine the Paris climate agreement already loom over the talks, as does his initial success in drawing support from other countries. “It’s not enough to just withdraw from” the 2015 pact and the broader U.N. climate framework that governs the annual talks, said Richard Goldberg, who worked as a top staffer on Trump’s White House National Energy Dominance Council and is now senior adviser to the think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “You have to degrade it. You have to deter it. You have to potentially destroy it.” Trump’s approach includes striking deals demanding that Japan, Europe and other trading partners buy more U.S. natural gas and oil, using diplomatic strong-arming to deter foreign leaders from cutting fossil fuel pollution, and making the United States inhospitable to clean energy investment. Unlike during his first term, when Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement but sent delegates to the annual U.N. climate talks anyway, he now wants to render them ineffective and starved of purpose by drawing as many other countries as possible away from their own clean energy goals, according to Cabinet officials’ public remarks and interviews with 20 administration allies and alumni, foreign diplomats and veterans of the annual climate negotiations. Those efforts are at odds with the goals of the climate summits, which included a Biden administration-backed pledge two years ago for the world to transition away from fossil fuels. Slowing or reversing that shift could send global temperatures soaring above the goals set in Paris a decade ago, threatening a spike in the extreme weather that is already pummeling countries and economies. The White House says Trump’s campaign to unleash American oil, gas and coal is for the United States’ benefit — and the world’s. “The Green New Scam would have killed America if President Trump had not been elected to implement his commonsense energy agenda — which is focused on utilizing the liquid gold under our feet to strengthen our grid stability and drive down costs for American families and businesses,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “President Trump will not jeopardize our country’s economic and national security to pursue vague climate goals that are killing other countries.” ‘WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE PARIS AGREEMENT DIE’ The Trump administration is declining to send any high-level representatives to the COP30 climate talks, which will formally begin Monday in Belém, Brazil, according to a White House official who declined to comment on the record about whether any U.S. government officials would participate. Trump’s view that the annual negotiations are antithetical to his energy and economic agenda is also spreading among other Republican officials. Many GOP leaders, including 17 state attorneys general, argued last month that attending the summit would only legitimize the proceedings and its expected calls for ditching fossil fuels more swiftly. Climate diplomats from other countries say they’ve gotten the message about where the U.S. stands now — and are prepared to act without Washington. “We have a large country, a president, and a vice president who would like to see the Paris Agreement die,” Laurence Tubiana, the former French government official credited as a key architect of the 2015 climate pact, said of the United States. “The U.S. will not play a major role” at the summit, said Jochen Flasbarth, undersecretary in the German Ministry of Environmental Affairs. “The world is collectively outraged, and so we will focus — as will everyone else — on engaging in talks with those who are driving the process forward.” Trump and his allies have described the stakes in terms of a zero-sum contest between the United States and its main economic rival, China: Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they say, are a complete win for China, which sells the bulk of the world’s solar, wind, battery and electric vehicle technology. That’s a contrast from the approach of former President Joe Biden, who pushed a massive U.S. investment in green technologies as the only way for America to outcompete China in developing the energy sources of the future. In the Trump worldview, stalling that energy transition benefits the United States, the globe’s top producer of oil and natural gas, along with many of the technologies and services to produce, transport and burn the stuff. “If [other countries] don’t rely on this technology, then that’s less power to China,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, who served in the U.S. Transportation Department during Trump’s first term and is now director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. TRUMP FINDS ALLIES THIS TIME Two big developments have shaped the president’s new thinking on how to counteract the international fight against climate change, said George David Banks, who was Trump’s international climate adviser during the first administration. The first was the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed and Biden signed in 2022, which promised hundreds of billions of dollars to U.S. clean energy projects. Banks said the legislation, enacted entirely on partisan lines, made renewable energy a political target in the minds of Trump and his fossil-fuel backers. The second is Trump’s aggressive use of U.S. trading power during his second term to wring concessions from foreign governments, Banks said. Trump has required his agencies to identify obstacles for U.S. exports, and the United Nations’ climate apparatus may be deemed a barrier for sales of oil, gas and coal. Trump’s strategy is resonating with some fossil fuel-supporting nations, potentially testing the climate change comity at COP30. Those include emerging economies in Africa and Latin America, petrostates such as Saudi Arabia, and European nations feeling a cost-of-living strain that is feeding a resurgent right wing. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright drew applause in March at a Washington gathering called the Powering Africa Summit, where he called it “nonsense” for financiers and Western nations to vilify coal-fired power. He also asserted that U.S. natural gas exports could supply African and Asian nations with more of their electricity. Wright cast the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 — the target dozens of nations have embraced — as “sinister,” contending it consigns developing nations to poverty and lower living standards. The U.S. about-face was welcome, Sierra Leone mining and minerals minister Julius Daniel Mattai said during the conference. Western nations had kneecapped financing for offshore oil investments and worked to undercut public backing for fossil fuel projects, Mattai said, criticizing Biden’s administration for only being interested in renewable energy. But now Trump has created room for nations to use their own resources, Mattai said. “With the new administration having such a massive appetite for all sorts of energy mixes, including oil and gas, we do believe there’s an opportunity to explore our offshore oil investments,” he said in an interview. TURNING UP THE HEAT ON TRADING PARTNERS Still, Banks acknowledged that Trump probably can’t halt the spread of clean energy. Fossil fuels may continue to supply energy in emerging economies for some time, he said, but the private sector remains committed to clean energy to meet the U.N.’s goals of curbing climate change. That doesn’t mean Trump won’t try. The administration’s intent to pressure foreign leaders into a more fossil-fuel-friendly stance was on full display last month at a London meeting of the U.N.’s International Maritime Organization where U.S. Cabinet secretaries and diplomats succeeded in thwarting a proposed carbon emissions tax on global shipping. That coup followed a similar push against Beijing a month earlier, when Mexico — the world’s biggest buyer of Chinese cars — slapped a 50 percent tariff on automotive imports from China after pressure from the Trump administration. China accused the U.S. of “coercion.” Trump’s attempt to flood global markets with ever growing amounts of U.S. fossil fuels is even more ambitious, though so far incomplete. The EU and Japan — under threat of tariffs — have promised to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on U.S. energy products. But so far, new and binding contracts have not appeared. Trump has also tried to push China, Japan and South Korea to invest in a $44 billion liquefied natural gas project in Alaska, so far to no avail. In the face of potential tariffs and other U.S. pressure, European ministers and diplomats are selling the message that victory at COP30 might simply come in the form of presenting a united front in favor of climate action. That could mean joining with other major economies such as China and India, and forming common cause with smaller, more vulnerable countries, to show that Trump is isolated. “I’m sure the EU and China will find themselves on opposite sides of many debates,” said the EU’s lead climate negotiator, Jacob Werksman. “But we have ways of working with them. … We are both betting heavily on the green transition.” Avoiding a faceplant may actually be easier if the Trump administration does decide to turn up in Brazil, said Li Shuo, the director of China Climate Hub at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington. “If the U.S. is there and active, I’d expect the rest of the world, including the EU and China, to rest aside their rhetorical games in front of a larger challenge,” Li wrote via text. And for countries attending COP, there is still some hope of a long-term win. Solar, wind, geothermal and other clean energy investments are continuing apace, even if Trump and the undercurrents that led to his reelection have hindered them, said Nigel Purvis, CEO of climate consulting firm Climate Advisers and a former State Department climate official. Trump’s attempts to kill the shipping fee, EU methane pollution rules and Europe’s corporate sustainability framework are one thing, Purvis said. But when it comes to avoiding Trump’s retribution, there is “safety in numbers” for the rest of the world that remains in the Paris Agreement, he added. And even if the progress is slower than originally hoped, those nations have committed to shifting their energy systems off fossil fuels. “We’re having slower climate action than otherwise would be the case. But we’re really talking about whether Trump is going to be able to blow up the regime,” Purvis said. “And I think the answer is ‘No.’” Nicolas Camut in Paris, Zia Weise in Brussels and Josh Groeneveld in Berlin contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — British and American tourists could pay higher fees to enter the EU under a plan to boost the bloc’s tax revenues. The EU is considering taxing foreign travelers to pay back part of the €350 billion common debt that was issued to finance its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. The potential new levy would be a particular hit to British tourists who already face longer passport queues and more restrictions to enter Europe as a result of Brexit. The move may also stymie the recent post-Brexit thaw between London and Brussels, which has seen the EU offer smoother passport controls and less red tape for British travelers. Nevertheless, raising the EU’s entry fee above the currently proposed €7 fee that comes as part of the bloc’s new European Travel Information and Authorisation System, or ETIAS, scheme is emerging as one of the most popular tax options ahead of the European Commission’s formal budget proposal on July 16, several diplomats told POLITICO. ETIAS is set to apply to 60 countries that have visa-free agreements with the EU, including the U.S. and U.K., from the last quarter of 2026 onward. Any further increase in the fee would similarly apply to the same cohort of countries. “It seems that there is a possibility of a gradual increase of the fee, strengthening the long-term revenue potential,” the Polish rotating Council presidency wrote in an internal note seen by POLITICO. A Commission spokesperson told POLITICO “a possible adjustment of the fee” is being considered to factor in the rise in inflation since the €7 levy was adopted in 2018. While the idea is politically an easy sell, it would likely generate less than a €1 billion per year — a drop in the ocean compared to the EU’s annual debt repayments of €25 billion to €30 billion that will start in 2028. Another popular option being floated to raise revenue involves levying a €2 fee on billions of imported small parcels from Chinese retailers such as Shein and Temu. The idea, outlined in a Commission paper seen by POLITICO, was endorsed by EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič earlier this week. TAX OPTIONS Faced with looming debt repayments, EU countries on Thursday discussed a variety of additional levies including those on digital and crypto firms, airline companies or the profits of multinationals. While these options would generate higher revenues than a traveler tax, they face stronger opposition as income and business taxes are usually levied at the national level. Besides, critics fear that raising wealth taxes would put off investors from Europe.   Another popular option being floated to raise revenue involves levying a €2 fee on billions of imported small parcels from Chinese retailers such as Shein and Temu. | Hannibal Hanschke/EFE via EPA “If these new own resources are additional taxes on business … or taxes on aviation, it’s not the way to do competitiveness in Europe,” said Matthieu Louvot, the executive vice president of Airbus, during a conference on the EU budget earlier this week.   Raising the EU’s entry fee is appealing because at €7 it is among the lowest in the world and the revenue is currently not being levied by states. To compare, the U.S. charges $21 to EU travelers, whereas the U.K. levies £16. The Commission estimates the tax will impact up to 50.5 million travelers in 2027, but it did not forecast the revenue it expects to generate. “ETIAS makes sense. You get into the European Union as a bloc, you need to pay something,” said Pascal Saint-Amans, a tax expert and former Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development official, during the budget conference. Germany has criticized the move in the closed-doors meeting on Thursday, arguing that it could disincentivize travel to Europe, according to two EU diplomats.

Harvard University filed suit Monday against the Trump administration, challenging its decision to cut more than $2 billion in grants in a high-profile showdown between the government and the prestigious private institution. Harvard President Alan Garber said in a statement announcing the suit that the university chose to challenge what it considered unreasonable demands from an administration antisemitism task force to “to control whom we hire and what we teach.” The administration’s demands, he said, “would impose unprecedented and improper control over the university” and came without any real effort to engage on the issue of antisemitism. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Massachusetts. “The gravy train of federal assistance to institutions like Harvard, which enrich their grossly overpaid bureaucrats with tax dollars from struggling American families is coming to an end,” said Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, in response to the lawsuit. “Taxpayer funds are a privilege, and Harvard fails to meet the basic conditions required to access that privilege.” The Trump administration has launched a review of roughly $9 billion in grants and contracts with the university over the treatment of Jewish students that it says violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, including during protests of the Israel-Gaza war that roiled campuses across the country last year. Already, the administration has pulled more than $2 billion in federal funding from the school and is considering pulling $1 billion more in grants. In addition, the Internal Revenue Service is scrutinizing the university’s tax-exempt status, and the Department of Homeland Security has threatened to revoke Harvard’s ability to enroll international students, who make up about 27 percent of its total enrollment. The Education Department is also probing the university’s federal funding. “These actions have stark real-life consequences for patients, students, faculty, staff, researchers, and the standing of American higher education in the world,” Garber said. The lawsuit said the federal government launched a broad attack on billions in research funding at Harvard and half a dozen institutions “with little warning and even less explanation.” Lawyers on behalf of the institution said the federal government is “withholding of federal funding as leverage to gain control of academic decisionmaking at Harvard.” To avoid losing funds, the administration earlier this month demanded the institution reform its governance, change its hiring and admissions policies, report foreign students and students with green cards for “conduct violations,” audit academic programs or departments for antisemitism using an external party, end diversity programs and reform student discipline procedure, among other requirements. “All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution’s ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions,” the lawsuit said, adding that the sweeping research funding freezes have “nothing at all to do with antisemitism.” Lawyers representing Harvard include some with GOP and Trump administration ties. They include Robert Hur, William Burck, Steven Lehotsky, who was a law clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia; and Scott Keller, who was formerly the Texas solicitor general. They argue that the administration’s actions flout the First Amendment and Title VI compliance procedures that must occur before revoking federal funding. The university argued that the government has “made no effort to follow those procedures” before freezing or terminating its funding, which include attempting to secure voluntary compliance, holding a hearing and unveiling a report of findings. Lawyers also said the funding freezes will force the school to reduce or halt ongoing research projects, terminate employment contracts and make cuts to departments and programs. If Harvard continues to use its own resources in place of the funding, the school will then have to reduce the number of graduate students it admits and the number of faculty and research staff. They also argued it could economically hurt the Boston area, since the university is one of Massachusetts’ largest employers. “Defendants’ actions threaten Harvard’s academic independence and place at risk critical lifesaving and pathbreaking research that occurs on its campus,” the lawsuit said, adding that the freeze is “part of a broader effort by the Government to punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights.”

BRUSSELS — Several major EU countries are advocating that the bloc’s carbon border tax be expanded in the coming years to help repay over €300 billion in pandemic-era debt.  France, Italy and Poland are the big hitters behind the push. They argue that the EU desperately needs new revenue streams and that the carbon border tax — which takes effect for specific sectors in 2026 — is one solution. The levy will initially cover highly polluting sectors like steel, cement and aluminum, as well as electricity and hydrogen, and aims to ensure imported goods pay a carbon price equivalent to EU standards. But the scheme, formally known as the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), also includes a built-in 2025 review that will explore a possible expansion to other sectors and products. Proponents are now making their case, spying an opening with the upcoming review and looming talks over the EU’s next seven-year budget, which will determine how the bloc repays the joint debt it took on in 2021 to stabilize a Covid-battered economy.  One of the plan’s biggest proponents, Poland, also currently holds sway over the EU’s policy conversation. The country will control the EU’s rotating six-month presidency until July, and its EU commissioner, Piotr Serafin, will oversee the budget portfolio for the next five years. Of course, a CBAM expansion would only cover a small fraction of the EU’s debt payments, which are expected to run between €25 billion and 30 billion annually — up to 20 percent of the bloc’s current annual cash pot. But advocates say it’s a start.  “We need to find new own resources,” Poland’s Deputy Finance Minister Paweł Karbownik told POLITICO, using the Brussels parlance for tax revenue flowing directly to the EU budget. “And out of these new own resources on the table, the most promising could be CBAM.” MORE MONEY FROM CBAM Austria, Bulgaria, Italy and Poland revived the CBAM conversation in December, when they circulated a paper arguing for an expansion of the scheme.  There are three main ways to grow CBAM: It can be extended it to new sectors, amended to cover exports as well as imports, or tweaked to include “downstream” products made from CBAM-covered imports — meaning finished or semi-finished products instead of just basic goods like steel. In their December proposal, the countries argued for downstream expansion. The European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, estimates that 75 percent of expected CBAM revenue, or €1.5 billion, would go into the EU budget. | Nicolas Tucat/Getty Images “The scope of the CBAM regulation should be extended to downstream sectors and products at risk of carbon leakage,” they wrote in the document, seen by POLITICO. They pushed for this to happen “by the end of the transition period,” which is at the end of 2025.  France also supports the expansion, according to a separate document seen by POLITICO. The collective call dovetails with the scheduled CBAM review, which will occur this year. Many CBAM-affected industries also back the idea, fearing that failure to expand the measure to downstream products could allow foreign companies to circumvent the levy. But not everyone is convinced. Countries with greater free-market orientations fear Donald Trump’s administration will lash out — even though the carbon levy applies to EU importers, not foreign firms. With the EU on the verge of a trade war with the U.S. already, they fear it would be a risky move. “I don’t know whether it could fly,” said one government official from a country opposed to extending CBAM, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics. “The question is what Trump is going to do.” THE EU’S DEBT BOMB Here’s the problem: The carbon border levy is one of the few EU-wide taxes flowing directly into the bloc’s budget. And with the Covid debt bill coming due, Brussels needs fresh revenue streams. Failure to find a solution could have dire consequences, wreaking havoc on EU funds normally reserved for everything from agricultural subsidies to defense. The European Commission, the EU’s executive in Brussels, estimates that 75 percent of expected CBAM revenue, or €1.5 billion, would go into the EU budget. The rest would flow to national governments. That differs from other EU revenue-raisers, such as the tax on multinational corporations or the EU’s carbon cap-and-trade market (ETS). Those schemes produce money that goes to individual governments.  That means CBAM expansion offers governments a way to raise more EU revenue — without giving up their own funds. “If somebody thinks in Brussels that you can shift ETS from national budgets to the EU budget, this is not new money,” said Karbownik, the Polish deputy finance minister. “It’s like going around in circles, it doesn’t make sense.” Still, the carbon border tax is far from a cure-all for the EU’s fiscal challenges. The issue may come up next month when EU leaders gather in Brussels to discuss the bloc’s next budget. The Commission will then offer its budget proposal in July. Zia Weise and Giorgio Leali contributed reporting.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music — Vorbereitungen für den Tag nach dem Wahlsonntag: Wie sich die Parteien auf den 24.02. vorbereiten, wer mit wem zuerst spricht, wo politische Karrieren befördert und womöglich beendet werden. Einblicke von Rasmus Buchsteiner dazu. — Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Bundesinnenministerin Nancy Faeser über Migrations-Streit, Terror-Schutz und den Zwist zwischen Union und SPD über Zurückweisungen an der Grenze. — US-Delegation in Europa unterwegs und EU-Außenministertreffen in Paris: Wie Europa versucht, Klarheit über Trumps Ukraine-Strategie zu erlangen.  Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

BRUSSELS — And so it begins again. Negotiations over the EU’s next seven-year central budget — typically the most tortuous and contentious of any in Brussels — start here. And this time they’re more complicated than ever. When they meet on Tuesday, the EU’s 27 commissioners will fire the opening salvo on sketching out the next spending period, running from 2028 to 2034. Talks on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) usually drag on for years and are often only unblocked by high-stakes, last-minute horse trading by EU leaders. Deliberations are even more difficult this time around because the Commission’s €300 billion joint debt program to rescue the EU economy after the Covid pandemic is up for repayment from 2028. Without a new plan, that could take a huge chunk — between 15 percent and 20 percent, according to the Commission’s estimates — out of the bloc’s spending power. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? The EU has to come up with a repayment plan before 2028. The Commission originally proposed levies on carbon emissions, imports and the profits of multinationals, a move that was expected to generate €36 billion annually. But EU governments nixed the plan because much of this revenue is already going to their national coffers. The Commission is keen to breathe new life into EU-wide taxes — known as “own resources” — and has urged leaders to bring new ideas to the table during a gathering in Brussels on March 20-21. The EU’s budget commissioner, Piotr Serafin, is promoting the bloc’s carbon border tax — which will fall on certain EU importers — as a potential way to boost revenue. WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES? Failure to reach an agreement on own resources could spell trouble for the entire budget. The default option consists of national governments filling the hole by sending more money to Brussels. The EU has to come up with a repayment plan before 2028. | Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images But this would open up a can of worms for the Commission. Countries from Northern Europe — which have received a relatively small share of the EU’s post-Covid aid — are loath to pay more into the budget, and in exchange for a bigger contribution would likely demand cuts to the EU cash pot, which covers everything from agricultural subsidies to defense. That trade-off would deal a blow to the Commission and to countries as diverse as France and Poland, which back a bigger central EU budget. The other option would be for the Commission to postpone the repayment of its debt, just as national governments do. Spain supported this approach in a document seen by POLITICO, arguing it would “alleviate short-term fiscal pressures, ensure liquidity in the EU bonds market, and allow continued investments for the future European economic model.” But Germany and its fiscally conservative allies see this as a slippery slope toward a fiscal union, in which the Commission permanently takes on the debts of its 27 members. WHAT ARE THE OTHER BATTLES? The Commission plans to revolutionize how it doles out its cash. Under the current budget, the EU spends around two-thirds of its money on agriculture and on local funding designed to narrow gaps among regions across Europe. But the Commission now wants to adapt the budget to its political program and to the geopolitical challenges the bloc faces. Rather than funding traditional industries, its goal is to use common cash to finance innovative schemes capable of generating big returns. Funding is also supposed to be directed to new priority areas such as the bloc’s defense sector. The EU’s budget commissioner, Piotr Serafin, is promoting the bloc’s carbon border tax as a potential way to boost revenue. | Nicolas Tucat/Getty Images In order to achieve this, the Commission supports linking payments to economic reforms that are designed to make EU countries more efficient. The Commission’s budget department toyed with the idea of lumping together over 500 different funds into a single cash pot for each country that would determine spending in sectors ranging from farm subsidies to social housing. Spain dismissed this option on the grounds that it “may not be the most effective way to achieve a simpler and more focused budget in practice.” WHAT WILL BE DECIDED, AND WHEN? Tuesday’s discussion kicks off a long and Byzantine process that will end before the start of 2028, when the new budget takes effect.   This week the commissioners will rubber-stamp a short document laying out the major issues to be addressed. There is some disagreement over how much individual commissioners will be able to influence the proposal, two Commission officials told POLTICO. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to keep a firm grip on the process, whereas commissioners with skin in the game would like a bigger role in steering the debate. After the Commission puts forward its proposal this summer, negotiations start between the Council and the European Parliament. National capitals are arguably the most powerful players in the process as each country can veto the budget.