America's carbon border tariff isn't credible
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"I always say 'tariffs' is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary."
- President Donald Trump
True to his work, Donald Trump has unleashed a bevy of tariffs on the world, declaring the 2nd of April to be “Liberation Day.”
Off-the-radar of the mainstream press, another set of tariffs has been proposed, but this time the focus is on the environmental impact of foreign producers who export carbon intensive materials to the US. The focus is naturally a surprise, especially given the anti-climate policy rhetoric and the administrations systematic dismantling of America’s environmental regulations (see America's state carbon markets are under siege).
Is the Trump administration having a change of heart and suddenly turning green, or is there something else going on amidst all the hot air?
In early April, two Republican senator’s, Bill Cassidy and Lindsey Graham, reintroduced the 2025 Foreign Pollution Fee Act (FPFA). If passed the fee would introduce tiered and escalating tariffs on selected imported goods, designed to “discourage the import of more pollution-intensive, foreign-produced goods.” The legislation was originally introduced in November 2023, and then subsequently updated in a short discussion draft released late last year. In the two-page summary the senators describe the FPFA as: 1
“an American plan designed to address environmental, economic, and national security concerns by imposing fees on imported goods based on their pollution intensity. It leverages America’s comparative advantage in environmental performance to rein in state-owned enterprises and weaken their control of global supply chains in key industrial sectors.”
The party in charge may have changed, but the propensity for grossly misnamed pieces of legislation remains. Just as Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) had little to do with tackling inflation, the FPFA arguably has very little to do with combating climate change. Instead, it’s really a cover for weakening Chinese control over global supply chains deemed to be a threat to the US.