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Fortune
Fortune
Sasha Rogelberg

Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change fake, is now threatening Brazil with tariffs over the deforestation of the Amazon

Donald Trump shakes the hand of a farmer wearing a red shirt (Credit: Samuel Corum—Getty Images)

In the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump made a special effort to deny the impacts of climate change. In a September 2025 United Nations speech, he called carbon footprints a “hoax” and criticized climate policies, jabbing, “Windmills are pathetic.” The White House defunded renewable energy subsidies, dismissing them as a waste of government funding.

But the administration launched a probe this month into Brazil’s deforestation as part of Trump’s implementation of new tariffs, which entail investigations into countries’ trade practices.

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