Trump's Eisenhower Moment: COP30 and the End of Europe's Green Agenda

Trump's energy realism is ending Brussels's grandiloquent claims to climate leadership

As the world’s climate delegations gather in Belém for COP30 (November 10th-21st), they do so under a very different geopolitical sky. The United States has withdrawn from the UN’s climate process altogether, and its diplomats have just led a successful rebellion at the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) to block a global carbon tax on shipping. The episode marks not only a turning point for global climate policy but a moment of historical resonance. Europe’s effort to impose its moral and regulatory hegemony on the world has been checked by the US. As in 1956, when President Eisenhower forced his European allies to abort their attempt to take over the Suez Canal, Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” approach to energy policy in 2025 has re-asserted the primacy of national interest over imperial pretension.