In the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump made a special effort to deny the impacts of climate change. In a September 2025 United Nations speech, he called carbon footprints a “hoax” and criticized climate policies, jabbing, “Windmills are pathetic.” The White House defunded renewable energy subsidies, dismissing them as a waste of government funding.
But the administration launched a probe this month into Brazil’s deforestation as part of Trump’s implementation of new tariffs, which entail investigations into countries’ trade practices.
Brazil is home to about 60% of the Amazon rain forest, which absorbs carbon dioxide that would otherwise enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Legal deforestation—mostly as a result of cattle ranching and agricultural expansion—has cost the country about 3.7 million acres per year.
To be sure, Trump hasn’t changed his mind about climate change, though his sudden concern over deforestation is still ironic.
Instead, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced a wave of new tariffs on dozens of major U.S. trading partners under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, alleging they failed to enforce bans on imports made with forced labor.