Jan. 11, 2026 7 AM PT
To the editor: Recent decisions by the Trump administration to withdraw the United States from several international climate and environmental bodies — including key U.N. agencies and, most consequentially, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation — mark a significant retreat from collaborative environmental governance at a moment when cooperation is most needed (“Trump withdraws U.S. from 66 international organizations and treaties, including major climate groups,” Jan. 7). These moves signal that Washington is stepping away from the very institutions designed to manage shared risks, even as climate impacts intensify across borders.
The Commission for Environmental Cooperation has long provided a practical forum for transparency, data sharing and joint problem-solving on issues ranging from air emissions to water quality and cross-border pollution. Its value lies not in enforcement, but in prevention — resolving disputes before they harden into trade or diplomatic conflicts. U.S. withdrawal weakens that safety valve.
At the same time, the United States continues to rely on enforceable environmental provisions embedded in trade agreements. This creates a troubling imbalance: Cooperative institutions are abandoned, while punitive tools remain. For Mexico and Canada, this asymmetry raises the risk that environmental issues — energy, emissions, water use or cross-border sewage flows — will be handled through sanctions rather than collaboration. Historically, U.S. leadership has been strongest when it engaged from within institutions.
Retreating from cooperative climate and environmental bodies may yield short-term flexibility, but it risks long-term isolation — leaving the United States outside the very rules that will govern trade, climate and competitiveness in the decades ahead.
Richard Kiy, La Jolla
This writer is president and CEO of the public policy nonprofit Institute of the Americas.