In five months, the United Nations will try again to impose the world’s first global carbon tax — and American families will pay the bill if Washington isn’t ready.
The vote at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) returns in October 2026. The same scheme, the same UN-administered fund, the same transfer of American wealth to international bureaucrats accountable to no voter anywhere. The European Union is already regrouping. Small island nations are already lining up with their hands out. The clock is ticking.
This fight should already be over. Last October, the Trump administration stared down the IMO and killed — at least temporarily — what would have been the first global carbon tax on any industry. Secretaries Marco Rubio, Chris Wright and Sean Duffy issued a joint statement threatening visa restrictions, port fees and sanctions on any country that voted yes. The IMO blinked. Member states voted 57 to 49 to postpone for a year.
President Donald Trump called the proposal the “Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping.” He was right.
But postponed is not killed. The vote returns this October, and the EU is pressing hard to resurrect the levy. Washington needs to be ready to fight it again — and this time finish the job.
Here is what the IMO is preparing to vote on. Ships would pay a carbon penalty of $100 to $380 per metric ton of excess CO₂. The revenue — projected at $11 to $13 billion per year — flows into a UN-administered Net-Zero Fund. Officially it’s for “green fuels” and “just transitions.”
In practice, it is a permanent revenue stream for the same international agencies that have held decades of climate summits while global emissions have continued to rise, with a well-documented history of incompetence, graft and waste.
Small island nations and developing countries are already lining up with their hands out, seeing the levy not as a tool to cut emissions but as a fresh source of climate reparations. The fund’s architects have promised the lion’s share will flow to the poorest states for “capacity building” — diplomatic language for a wealth transfer on a global scale, administered by bureaucrats who answer to no voter anywhere.
Meanwhile, American families get stuck with the bill. Higher shipping costs don’t stay at sea. They flow straight into the price of every imported good: clothes, electronics, medicine, car parts, food. The Trump administration’s own analysis warned shipping costs could jump 10% or more.
That is not abstract climate justice. It is a regressive tax falling hardest on working Americans who already face inflation fatigue.
And for what? Global CO₂ emissions keep rising even in places with aggressive carbon pricing. Europe’s Emissions Trading System hasn’t stopped continental emissions from growing in several sectors. China emits more CO₂ than all industrial nations combined, burns more than half the world’s coal, and is building hundreds of new coal plants designed to run for 40 years or longer — while lecturing the West about responsibility.
China also operates the world’s largest commercial fleet. Under the IMO framework, Chinese state-owned shippers pay the levy and pass the cost to American importers. American families would fund the UN bureaucracy and subsidize Beijing’s trade dominance at the same time. That is a bad deal by any measure.
The EU will argue the United States helped develop this framework for years before reversing course. That is true — and it is an argument for walking away permanently, not returning to a bad deal out of diplomatic inertia. If a policy is wrong, the fact that earlier administrations supported it is not a reason to continue. It is a reason to be grateful someone finally said no.
The correct position for October 2026 is the same as last fall: no centralized UN fund, no deal. If trading partners want to address shipping emissions, there is a better path — support American innovation in cleaner marine fuels, negotiate bilateral agreements with verifiable standards, and keep the revenue and accountability at home with elected governments answerable to their own citizens.
The pattern never changes. Every UN climate levy starts with noble language and ends with a self-perpetuating bureaucracy skimming off global trade. If this one passes, aviation, agriculture and consumer goods will be next. The tax ratchets up every year while emissions continue their stubborn climb largely driven by Asian need for more reliable electricity primarily from coal.
Trump and his team did the American people a genuine service last fall. The job is not finished.
Washington should return to the IMO in October 2026 with the same message: American sovereignty and American wallets are not bargaining chips for bureaucrats in London and Geneva.
Kill the fund. Kill the levy. And if our trading partners won’t agree, make the consequences clear.
Frank Lasee is President of Truth in Energy and Climate and a former Wisconsin state senator.
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