Trump administration officials warned of additional trade tariffs and made personal threats against negotiators from other countries to block a historic climate deal for shipping, said people present at the talks.
More than 10 diplomats, officials from other governments and industry observers told the Financial Times that the US ripped up normal global diplomacy rules and used “bully-boy tactics” to derail the UN-backed Net Zero Framework for global shipping at meetings in London last month.
A phalanx of US officials intimidated African and small Pacific and Caribbean island countries into dropping support for the framework, which would have imposed a carbon emissions levy on shipping, according to people present at the talks at the headquarters of the UN’s International Maritime Organization in London. The US group included eight people, according to one person present.
The intimidation included approaching country officials during coffee breaks to warn them they might not be able to transit via the US, or that they and their families could face restrictions on entering the country if they acted against American interests, according to five people at the talks, including two from countries that were directly threatened.
US President Donald Trump has branded the framework a “global green new scam tax on shipping”, and in a social media post last month called for it to be blocked.
The framework had been provisionally agreed by a majority of countries in April and was expected to be made legally binding last month, but further discussions on its adoption have now been delayed for a year.
While the Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for the UN and multilateral organisations, diplomats and experts warned that the behaviour at the IMO crossed a line, with potential long-term consequences for global governance.
“It was like the New York street,” said a diplomat from a nation that was threatened with visa restrictions for shipping crews and other penalties, including increased fees to access US ports, if it did not drop its support for the framework.
“They went from delegation to delegation . . . threatening them. Telling them to go back and speak to their capitals, warning what would happen if they didn’t change their minds,” the diplomat said.
A second veteran of IMO meetings said the US tactics had left the entire organisation — usually a forum for technocratic discussion and consensus-based decision making — in a state of “complete shock”.
“It’s like dealing with the Mob,” the veteran added. “It’s bully-boy tactics. They don’t need to tell you exactly what they’re going to do to you, just make it clear that there will be consequences.”
A State Department official did not address the personal threats to delegates from other countries. But the official commended Greece and Cyprus, which broke ranks with the rest of the EU and abstained from a vote to adjourn talks for a year, having previously approved the framework in April.
In a statement issued before the meetings in London, US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the Trump administration was “evaluating sanctions on officials sponsoring activist-driven climate policies that would burden American consumers, among other measures under consideration”.
Creon Butler, head of global economy at Chatham House, said breaking with diplomatic tradition and using leverage to force other countries to comply with its approach to issues such as climate change carried long-term risks for US influence.
“In the very short term this might work, but in the medium term it increases the chances that non-US countries will conclude they cannot work with the US, making agreements independently among themselves which simply work around the US,” he said.
Several nations, including Brazil, warned at last month’s meeting that “methods that should not ever be used among sovereign nations” had been deployed to scupper the Net Zero Framework, but without providing specifics.
People who attended the IMO talks said US intimidation was directed both at individuals and capitals, with many countries, including Bangladesh, Japan and Indonesia, receiving diplomatic démarches — formal diplomatic protests — warning of retaliation.
One démarche seen by the Financial Times used diplomatic language to warn of “reciprocal measures” against countries that backed the Net Zero Framework. These included levying additional trade tariffs, increasing fees on their ships when they docked at US ports, higher disembarkation levies and threatening to revoke US visas of crew members.
“There was a combination of economic threats, which were reiterated on the floor, as well as very personal delegate-level threats, including threats to visas,” said one IMO delegate, who had conferred with several countries about the threats they had experienced from the US, but asked to remain anonymous because there “is so much fear about retaliation”.
Another country delegate said some negotiators had been told they would face restrictions if they planned to travel home via the US.
“We had some very specific threats made to us. They are clearly thinking about which levers could be applied to each country,” the person said. “Everyone was surprised by the extent of [the] pressure.”
Another delegate said that before the meeting in London, the US had contacted countries around the world, including rich nations, warning that “individual delegation members could be put on a sanctions list,” with the expectation they would face visa restrictions if they backed the framework.
Those threats were then reiterated in London, they added. “It was completely exceptional. I have never heard of anything like this in the context of an IMO negotiation. These people [being threatened] are just bureaucrats, they are civil servants,” the person said.
Although the Net Zero Framework was delayed for one year, delegates said that as long as Trump remained in the White House it was hard to imagine how the agreement could come into force.
Talks on technical standards for the deal have since continued but several delegates acknowledged they were largely futile.
Additional reporting by Aime Williams in Washington
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