President Trump announced from the White House Rose Garden late last week that he is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Accord (PCA). While many from both the left and right bemoaned the decision, those who voted for Trump cheered his decision.
For those who embraced Trump’s America First campaign theme, the decision marks a return to common sense when it comes to the whole issue of climate change.
Barack Obama now sees the second of his signature efforts, The Affordable Care Act and the Paris Climate Accord get taken back to the drawing board and he has no one to blame but himself. Obama avoided seeking ratification of the PCA in the Senate making the act an agreement that was not legally binding.
Candidate Trump ran on a promise to withdraw from the deal and President Trump kept that promise. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and a number of energy-industry lobbyists who support the deal had urged him to remain in the agreement. Once again, Trump proved his loyalty is to those who elected him and the good of the country as a whole.
In his uncharacteristically quiet yet firm speech, Trump said, “I am fighting every day for the great people of this country. Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. And if we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”
Reaction to the announcement was typical for detractors from the left.
Billionaire and environmentalist Tom Steyer said withdrawing would be a “traitorous act of war.”
Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is running for Congress, claimed that history will condemn Trump for leaving the Paris climate deal.
Actress Patricia Arquette went so far as to suggest a class-action lawsuit against the president’s decision to stop participating in a voluntary agreement.
“The Paris Agreement essentially blocks U.S. development of clean coal”, said Trump. He added that he was going to try to make it to the opening of a new mine in two weeks and noted “Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places.”
Trump pointed to the inequities of the Paris Climate Agreement that allow countries like China and India to continue to pollute for years while the US pays the price in jobs now.
“For example,” said Trump, “under the agreement, China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years — 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and billions of dollars in foreign aid from developed countries. There are many other examples. But the bottom line is that the Paris Accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States.”
According to Trump, “Fourteen days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America…would totally wipe out the gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030,” he added. He quoted a Wall Street Journal article that said, “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and won’t matter much to the climate.”
Trump’s decision to buck accepted climate change rhetoric highlights his determination to put the interests of the people he represents first.
“The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy in order to win praise from the very foreign capitals and global activists that have long sought to gain wealth at our country’s expense. They don’t put America first. I do, and I always will. The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and, in many cases, lax contributions to our critical military alliance.”
The President expressed his willingness to work with Democratic leaders to negotiate terms that are fair to the United States and its workers. He said, “So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non-obstructionists … and we won’t be closing up our factories, and we won’t be losing our jobs.”
Watch Trump’s speech in its entirety where he announces his intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord below.
~ American Liberty Report
