Pressure always breeds reaction, and if there’s one thing the world should have learned from Trump 1.0, it’s that trying to strong-arm him is like poking a bear that’s already chewing on the stick you’re using. He doesn’t just push back—he makes a sport of it. Anything forced upon him, he’ll oppose on principle, perhaps out of instinct, perhaps out of sheer mischief.
Which is why this time around, the high priests of climate orthodoxy at the UN might find themselves uncomfortably close to the fire they’ve been stoking for everyone else. I don’t quite expect the UN to be ceremoniously dismantled—too many sinecures and five-star junkets depend on it—but Trump could very well start rattling its sacred furniture. A few loud threats to defund the more decorative branches, like the IPCC, and perhaps a trimming of other bureaucratic vines, and suddenly the temple of global governance starts looking less eternal and more like a luxury hotel during a power outage.
And let’s be honest: nobody has the money for these climate theatrics anymore. Not in Washington, not in Brussels, and certainly not in Beijing.
But here’s the twist most won’t notice: tightening maritime rules makes shipping more expensive. And the one nation built like an economic barnacle on global shipping lanes is China. Europe, meanwhile, is in desperate need of a renaissance for its own industries. Making Chinese imports pricier might just be the blunt instrument they need to achieve what decades of subsidies and innovation funds failed to do.A simple Border Adjustment Tax would do the trick nicely. No need to dress it up in carbon penance—the “green” excuse is wearing thin, and voters care about jobs, not polar bear postcards. Strip away the moral frosting and what remains is raw, practical economics. And perhaps, unintentionally, the start of a very different game.