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.