Written on: January 19, 2026
From the National Propane Gas Association Bobtail
On January 7, 2026 President Trump issued a presidential memorandum directing the State Department and other agencies to begin withdrawing US funding and participation from 66 international organizations, conventions, and treaties that the administration has determined are contrary to the interests of the United States. This action follows the earlier 2025 Executive Order 14199 which tasked the US Secretary of State with reviewing all US participation in international bodies and conventions to identify those contrary to US interests. Of the 66 withdrawals directed by the president, roughly two dozen deal directly with or are committed to anti-carbon initiatives and championing global wealth transfers from the West to the developing world, vis-à-vis the Paris Climate Agreement and Net-Zero Framework.
One of the most important organizations that the US is pulling away from in this latest move is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty signed in 1992 among countries to combat “dangerous human interference with the climate system.” The UNFCCC’s primary mission is to effect the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016 among the 198 adhering states to limit global temperature rise to less than or equal to 2 degrees Celsius: primarily by severely restricting and eventually eliminating all meaningful human carbon emissions. This applies to all industry, travel, agriculture, and social mechanisms of modern life since the Industrial Revolution. The US contributed roughly 31% of the UN’s annual operating budget—hovering at just under $1 billion dollars annually for the last decade—prior to President Trump’s order last year to limit and halt funding to the organization. Due to the reduction in contributions in 2025, the UN has had to curb program spending, freeze hiring and launch a longer-term efficiency initiative while dipping into its reserve accounts, borrowing a record $607 million in fiscal year 2024, with unclear figures for 2025. President Trump’s reductions could mean that the US’s stake in the global organization now dips below that of the second-largest single contributor, the People’s Republic of China.
The wider pullout from international regulatory bodies, ranging from environmentalism to international migration facilitation will certainly mean savings for the US budget, but what implication these moves will have over the remainder of President Trump’s term and the subsequent global order are yet to be determined. Recent moves favoring the carbon sector will mean improvements to US industry, domestically and abroad, such as:
*The ousting of Communist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, who had nationalized billions of dollars of private industry resources serving that state’s oil deposits, roughly 18% of the global supply. Alongside increasing ambitions to oust the linked Communist regimes of Nicaragua and Cuba;
*Pressuring Panama to accept new transit agreements for US ships while supporting new LPG pipeline infrastructure, benefiting exporters in the Gulf of America;
*Agreements with the European Union to phase out remaining shares of Russian gas supplies in favor of American and other sources;
*Reauthorization of the Port Infrastructure Development Program, for more than $450 million, to directly support bunkering and other transit capabilities at American sea- and Great-Lakes ports;
*And increasingly, a controversial but pragmatic approach to international resources in Greenland, the Pacific, and elsewhere that rare earth elements and untapped resources are available or where the US has an overriding security interest.
None of these recent developments is possible within the current framework of an international rules-based system outside the direct control of Washington. It’s clear that President Trump and his administration recognize this and are not willing to cede authority and capability to allies and other state actors, for good or ill.
To learn more about NPGA’s oversight of the international LPG landscape, visit the NPGA Tariffs Information portal. For more information on how your organization or municipality can benefit from upcoming infrastructure grant and loan opportunities, reach out to NPGA’s manager of grants and agency engagement, Nicholas Edward, at nedward@npga.org.
