The Democrat and current U.S. president landed in Manaus, mentioning millions of dollars in investments for the Amazon Fund and a new public-private partnership. However, experts interviewed by InfoAmazonia claim that Biden has fallen short of his promises and that Trump is expected to further reduce U.S. support for the Amazon.

During his stop in Manaus on Saturday, Joe Biden became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon. But the focus of environmental advocates and experts was already on what the future might hold with the return of another American politician: Donald Trump.

The visit to the capital of Amazonas took place almost two weeks after the current U.S. vice-president, Kamala Harris, was defeated by Trump in the presidential election. Biden met with Indigenous leaders and announced additional support of US$50 million for the Amazon Fund, a project that captures and invests national and international resources for the conservation and sustainable use of the Amazon, and the creation of the Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Financial Coalition, a public-private partnership that intends to invest US$10 billion in preservation projects by 2030.

These extra US$50 million promised to the Amazon Fund is far below Biden’s initial plan. In 2020, while on the campaign trail, Biden promised to raise US$20 billion to support the Amazon—an amount that never materialized. In 2023, he announced that the U.S. would contribute US$500 million over five years to the Amazon Fund, but at the time, he made an initial investment of US$50 million, a sum that disappointed the Brazilian government and environmental defenders, without advancing beyond that figure until this past Sunday.

Regarding the Brazil Restoration and Bioeconomy Financial Coalition, Biden did not make it clear what the next steps will be for its implementation. Analysts interviewed by InfoAmazonia say that it is likely that a new Republican government led by Donald Trump will impede many of the promises announced by the Democrat during his term.

Ashley Thomson, senior analyst at Global Witness, an international non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to defend human rights, believes that it was “bad timing” for the visit: “I think it would have been more significant if he did it a year ago.” For Thomson, whose work focuses on policies preventing deforestation, the Biden administration should have “done more when he did have power” and that, in total, “we are not close” to the money that the Democrat wanted to raise for the Amazon.

Plans that will likely be abandoned

Despite disappointing with the amount of money it raised for the Amazon, the Biden administration implemented important domestic measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels and encourage the transition to green energy. The Inflation Reduction Act, landmark climate legislation signed into law in 2022, allocated billions of dollars to promote clean energy, with the potential to reduce the country’s carbon emissions by about 40% from 2005 levels before 2030.

Additionally, during his visit to Manaus, the Democrat announced that the US has raised US$11 billion in international climate finance in 2024, an amount significantly higher than the US$1.5 billion obtained in the first year of his term. In response to InfoAmazonia, the United States State Department said that the American government has “supported partners to conserve, restore, or manage 82 million hectares of land like tropical forests” since COP26, which took place during the first year of Biden’s term, and that “more than half of this came from the Amazon region”.

“I think those are incredibly remarkable advances,” said Juliana de Moraes Pinheiro, coordinator of the Socio-Environmental and Just Transition Program at the Washington-Brazil Office, an American NGO.

However, other Biden policies regarding the Amazon include well-intentioned but vague and unfinished plans, according to experts — which the Trump presidency will likely abandon.

An executive order signed by Biden in 2022, guided the U.S. State Department and other executive bodies to issue recommendations to combat international deforestation. However, these recommendations, issued by the State Department a year later, lacked specific, actionable policies, according to Global Witness’ Thomson. The expert stated that the recommendations failed to “find realistic political options.”

Thomson said that another disappointment in U.S. policy toward the Amazon is linked to the new rules approved this year by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which require publicly traded companies to disclose their climate risk. The rules were weakened during the public comment process and the final draft does not require companies to disclose the impacts of deforestation on their supply chains. Thomson said this decision allows agribusiness companies to hide almost all of their significant emissions.

Other pro-environmental policies in the U.S. are likely to become increasingly rare in the years to come. With Republican control of the presidency, Senate and House of Representatives, the American government is expected to increase greenhouse gas emissions, deny funding to the Amazon Fund and other preservation funds and undermine attempts to regulate U.S. support of destructive and exploratory ventures in the Amazon and around the world.

“Having a climate denier, a fossil fuel admirer [as president] in the U.S., which is the country that produces the most petroleum, is very nerve-wracking,” said Pinheiro, of the Washington-Brazil Office. Trump’s record includes rolling back more than 100 environmental regulations during his first term. Now, he promises to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act and drastically increase oil production. His policies could result in an additional 4 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions, according to a study by CarbonBrief, a UK outlet that investigates climate science and policy.

The result of the U.S. election could also hinder international progress on climate change as the global climate movement loses the support of one of its most influential nations. Trump, who adopted a more isolationist foreign policy in his first term, has already promised to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Accords once again.

For James Green, president of the Board of Directors of the Washington-Brazil Office, it is unlikely that the US will play a significant role in COP30, scheduled to take place in Belém in 2025: “I don’t even know if we will send serious representatives to it.”

Climate far from the agenda during the elections

Climate change appeared to have little relevance in the U.S. presidential campaign. According to a Pew Research survey carried out before the election, the issue was the 10th most important issue for American voters, with only 37% of registered voters considering it “very important” for their vote.

For Daniela Dias, coordinator of Amazônia SOS, a Brazilian NGO dedicated to the conservation of the Amazon, the climate movement needs to become more accessible and engage more people and sectors: “I think the historical failure we have is not being able to make this discussion intersectoral, to make it leave this niche…. With this new scenario, the setback is that: not being able to establish an intersectoral dialogue between countries.”

Given the far-reaching impact of climate change — exemplified by the two hurricanes that flooded the southeastern United States before the election and the drought parching the Amazon — activists and experts say this approach needs to change. “It’s very unfortunate because we all lose,” Pinheiro said. “Everyone in the whole entire planet.”