From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a pair of high-stakes meetings next week in order to negotiate an end to the Ukraine war, Trump said on Truth Social Thursday.

Trump will meet with Putin in Budapest, Hungary after an initial round of negotiations between Russian advisors and U.S. diplomats led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio next week, the president said in his post. Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday to discuss the war and his conversation with Putin.

“The United States’ initial meetings will be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, together with various other people, to be designated. A meeting location is to be determined,” Trump said in his post. “President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this ‘inglorious’ War, between Russia and Ukraine, to an end.”

“President Zelenskyy and I will be meeting tomorrow, in the Oval Office, where we will discuss my conversation with President Putin, and much more. I believe great progress was made with today’s telephone conversation,” he wrote.

Putin congratulated Trump on the historic deal between Hamas and Israel, and thanked First Lady Melania Trump for her work on protecting children in Ukraine, the president said in his post.

Trump said Wednesday that India will stop buying Russian oil, a deal that the administration said was fueling the war effort in Ukraine.

The meeting will mark Putin’s first visit to any European Union member state since before the invasion of Ukraine, when he attended a summit in Germany on the subject of peace.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Melissa O’Rourke

The Trump administration is fighting to block a global carbon tax that a United Nations (UN) agency is attempting to pass quietly this week.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO), a UN body based in London, is meeting this week to adopt a so-called “Net-Zero Framework,” which would levy significant penalties on carbon dioxide emissions from ships that exceed certain limits. The Trump administration argues the proposal could raise global shipping costs by as much as 10%, ultimately driving up prices for American consumers.

“President Trump has made it clear that the United States will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or harms the interests of the American people,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said in a joint statement Friday.

“The Administration unequivocally rejects this proposal before the IMO and will not tolerate any action that increases costs for our citizens, energy providers, shipping companies and their customers, or tourists,” the cabinet secretaries wrote.

The proposed tax is part of the IMO’s broader goal to bring global shipping to net-zero emissions “by or around” 2050. Qualifying ships that fall short of emissions targets would face taxes ranging from $100 to $380 per ton of CO2.

Notably, the tax would be paid directly by shipowners rather than governments.

The Net-Zero Framework could generate between $11 billion and $12 billion annually from 2028 through 2030, paid into a UN-controlled fund, according to University College London. Meanwhile, other estimates warn that if the global fleet misses the IMO’s targets by even 10%, the annual cost of emissions could climb to $20 to $30 billion by 2030 and potentially exceed $300 billion by 2035.

Some critics equated the proposal to “taxation without representation,” noting that an unelected committee would have the authority to set and potentially raise the tax.

The Trump administration is urging member states to reject the proposal and has threatened retaliatory measures against countries that support it. These include investigations into anti-competitive practices, visa restrictions for maritime crews, commercial and financial penalties, higher port fees for ships tied to those nations, and possible sanctions on officials promoting climate policies.

“The Trump administration is right to draw a hard line against the UN’s latest scheme to export its climate agenda through global taxes and trade barriers,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Isaac said the proposed carbon tax, along with other measures — including the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires companies to disclose environmental and social impacts — “represent an alarming attempt to impose costly, extraterritorial regulations on American businesses and consumers.”

“These measures threaten U.S. sovereignty, inflate energy and transport costs, and weaponize climate policy as a tool of economic coercion,” Isaac said. “The United States must not tolerate foreign governments using environmental pretexts to dictate how we trade, build, and move goods. President Trump’s firm stance puts American workers and energy security first, where they belong.”

Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, also commended the administration’s efforts to block the UN measure.

“Not only does [Trump] oppose the UN carbon tax, but he has instructed his administration to take action against nations that try to implement it against the U.S.,” Milloy told the DCNF. “I am simply in awe of his commitment to ending the international climate hoax, which has long been aimed at stealing from and otherwise crippling our country’s economy and national security.”