The Amazon rainforest continues to reel from a devastating year, having suffered the worst fires in decades and a historic drought. With the onslaught of executive orders coming out of the Trump administration over the past week, many of us are questioning if his environmental and foreign policies will push the Amazon rainforest past its ecological tipping point.
As I underscored in my recent interview with AP News, from my perspective as Amazon Watch’s United States-based Advocacy Director, the implications of the Trump administration for the Amazon rainforest range from very concerning to horrifying.
In the best case, Trump’s administration will de-prioritize and act indifferent to environmental and human rights concerns throughout the Amazonian region. In the worst case, it will be actively hostile to efforts to protect the rainforest and the Indigenous communities that steward it, aggressively promoting extractive industries and enabling transnational criminal economies to flourish.
As we brace ourselves for our collective fight ahead, I offer my insights into the potential impact of the new administration on the Amazon rainforest and Indigenous communities on the front lines of the struggle to protect it.
Leaving the Paris Climate Accord
Repeating an action from his first presidency, Trump directed the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. In broad terms, this is a blow to global climate action with the United States as the largest historic emitter of greenhouse gasses and the world’s current leader in fossil fuel extraction.
Specific to the Amazon rainforest, this action also presents Amazonian governments with a permission structure to ignore or walk back climate commitments. This comes precisely at the moment when the protection of the rainforest demands greater ambition and regional coordination to confront mounting transnational threats, including criminal organizations and illicit economies.
Additionally, this move enables private sector companies to weaken their already unenforceable climate pledges, evidenced by numerous big banks dropping their climate commitments.
Declaring an “energy emergency”
Catering to the fossil fuel industry, Trump summed up his energy policy by reiterating the promise to “drill, baby drill.” If the front-row presence of tech billionaires at Trump’s inauguration is any indication, the Trump Administration could prove to be the most subservient to private capital and hostile to government oversight and regulations in history.
This is concerning given that the unrestrained natural resource extraction of multinational corporations continues to be a significant threat to the well-being of the Amazon and local communities.
During the first Trump Administration, Amazon Watch called out a USAID program through which oil companies attempted to greenwash their image. It was canceled in 2020 following community protests — a sign of the previous administration’s responsiveness to criticisms.
In the current context, U.S. embassies will likely become overt emissaries for U.S. multinational interests in the Amazon – including investors and private banks – with at best perfunctory concern for the local human rights or environmental impacts of those companies.
Freezing all foreign aid
US foreign assistance has been suspended for 90 days while the new administration assesses whether it is in line with Trump’s foreign policy. As Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency looks for trillions of dollars in budget cuts, the Trump Administration will slash financial support for initiatives like the Amazon Fund. Funding from USAID for climate, environmental, and human rights programs will likely be on the chopping block.
Another consequential area for monitoring is funding for multilateral human rights institutions like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the U.S. has been its largest benefactor in recent years) and missions of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights in countries like Colombia and Peru.
Of course, the U.S. Congress has traditionally wielded the power of the purse strings and determined annual funding for the federal government. The congressional appropriations process will offer indications of where Amazon-related funding is heading in the coming months. The discussion will be run by Congressional Republicans, and the signs at the outset are discouraging.
Waning protections for international human rights
Executive orders related to immigration and transgender people reaffirmed that respect for human rights and the rule of law are not organizing principles for the Trump Administration. Neither are concepts of racial or climate justice. Though the U.S. government has always applied human rights to foreign policy in an opportunistic way, often prioritizing geostrategic and economic interests, there are meaningful differences between presidencies.
The attitudes and actions of foreign governments have a direct impact on Amazonian communities, as they struggle to defend their homelands from multitudinous threats. U.S. political and financial support for local Amazonian community leaders and environmental defenders can and has made a positive impact.
In compliance with guidance to support human rights defenders, U.S. embassies around the Amazon region have spoken out both privately and publicly for human rights, often in collaboration with other countries. This era is likely over for the foreseeable future. U.S. government staff who advocate for rights will be deemed part of the “deep state” and sidelined or pushed out.
Hosting authoritarian presidents at the inauguration
While snubbing longstanding U.S. allies like Canada and Mexico, Trump invited several right-wing populists to the inauguration. Some attended, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, and others didn’t. Given Trump’s affinity with fellow authoritarians and recent efforts by Elon Musk to publicly meddle in European elections, it’s not difficult to imagine the Trump Administration scheming to tip the scales during upcoming national elections in favor of extreme right-wing candidates.
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is looking to not only avoid jail time but somehow finagle his way back into the presidency. The policies of Trump’s friends, should they be elected, would spell disaster for the Amazon rainforest in the foreseeable future.
The struggle continues
The road ahead will be extremely difficult on multiple fronts, and policies of the Trump administration will contribute to the Amazon biome being pushed to its limits. Yet, Amazonian Indigenous peoples and local communities will be undeterred in their indefatigable effort to protect their ancestral territories and livelihoods. Although their struggle for collective rights may face increasing headwinds in the coming years, and tragically produce more martyrs, it will outlive Trump as it has outlived centuries of grave threats.
In the face of a new Trump Administration, Amazon Watch will:
- Continue to accompany grassroots Amazonian partners, who are defending their territories at risk to themselves
- Strengthen on-the-ground campaigns for corporate accountability
- Mobilize U.S. public opinion against Administration policies and actions that exacerbate threats to the Amazon
- Work with allies in the U.S. Congress to expose and counteract threats to the Amazon and Indigenous communities in the region
- Collaborate with key political actors from the Amazon region like the Parliamentarians for a Fossil-Free Future
