TRUMP’S REMOVAL FROM PARIS ACCORD WILL COME BACK TO BITE TRUMP

…This is the way the Paris withdrawal is being shown by the international press

 

During his presidency, Trump will do all that he can to eliminate the achievements of President Obama

 

A major publication in Australia correctly published a political cartoon showing a table with its chairs marked with the flags of the country’s in the Paris Agreement.  But they correctly showed the one with the Unites States flag mounted on a baby’s high chair with a child’s eating tray.

 

Yes, there was plenty of ignorance shown within the content of the sinister speech President Trump gave in pulling out of the International Climate Change Agreement.  There doesn’t seem to be the understanding that the American president just gifted the leadership of a 195 nation agreement over to China.  China will now obviously take advantage of that gift, which leaves the US sitting in the background with only two other minor nations.  Those being a devastated, and war-torn Syria, and Nicaragua, who actually thinks the Paris Accord didn’t go far enough.

 

This move by Herr Trump has dismayed America’s allies and it has set back the global effort to address a warming planet.

 

Trump made condemning comments at many foreign leaders as well as top environmentalists and corporate leaders, who regarded the US leaving the Paris accord as an irresponsible removal of American leadership, all in the face of clear scientific evidence.

 

This president is the same individual that called climate change a “hoax” and all he did was to make good on another campaign promise, targeted directly at his political base, but with only 37% of their approval.  This president was so desperate for a needed “win” in his column that this was the only thing he could come up with at the time.

 

This is also a way that Trump can cancel Obama-era regulations that he has incorrectly said were limiting industries and killing jobs. The president said his decision was a “reassertion of America’s sovereignty,” which is a strange, unexplained statement. He also argued that the climate agreement was grossly unfair to the US workers that he had vowed to protect with his populist “America First” platform.  How the climate change issue is unfair to US workers is a bizarre thought when one considers that it has spawned industries that didn’t even formally exist, and that it offers 10 new jobs for every job lost in the coal, steel and other “Rust Belt” states.

 

Trump’s bogus statement that he was “…elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” did not sit well with the mayor of Pittsburg.  The mayors of the other towns he mentioned such as Youngstown, and Detroit, they and many others have said that they didn’t appreciate being referred to in his speech.  Some have already signed executive orders for their towns saying that they will continue to follow the basics direction given in the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

This clown show of a pulling out of the agreement is just another opportunity for Herr Trump to remove another signature diplomatic achievement of President Obama’s.  This Paris accord was celebrated at the time, as a universal response to the problems caused by the global warming crisis.

 

The good news is that the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement cannot be finalized until the end of Trump’s term.  That’s because of the accord’s legal structure and its language.  The point being that should Trump not win a second term, a new president could immediately reverse this latest bad decision.

 

Then again, the way things are going in the Trump White House with all the investigations regarding possible collusion with Russia or his possible problem of obstruction of justice, might we instead be having to deal with a President Pence....?

 

With the US walking away from the agreement, that means that the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases is taking the walk.  Scientists have also said with the loss of the US, it will now be nearly impossible for the world to reach the agreed goal of limiting global warming to below a 3.6-degree Fahrenheit rise above pre-industrial temperatures.

Trump referred to a study that is deeply flawed to support his claim that by staying the course with the Paris agreement, would cost the United States as many as 2.7 million jobs by 2025 and as much as $3 trillion in lost gross domestic product.

 

This is pure B.S. and as usual, he offered no actual proof to substantiate that claim.

 

“We’re going to have the cleanest air,” Trump said. “We’re going to have the cleanest water. We will be environmentally friendly. But we’re not going to put our businesses out of work. We’re not going to lose our jobs.”  But as with most of Trump’s claims, how this was going to be achieved was left out of all of his statements.

 

In a pure “gesture only” to those who had encouraged him to remain in the accord, Trump said he was open to negotiating a new climate deal that would be more fair to American interests.

 “We’re getting out,” he added, “but we will start to negotiate and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair. If we can, that’s great. And if we can’t, that’s fine.”

 

However, other world leaders do not agree with what Trump had offered.

 

“We deem the momentum generated in Paris in December 2015 irreversible and we firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated, since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies,” this was the response statement from French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Even though Trump spoke by phone with Merkel and Macron, as well as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and British Prime Minister Theresa May, who led the chorus of world leaders urging Trump to keep the United States in the Paris agreement, it was all to no avail.

 

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy issued an additional joint statement voicing “regret” about Trump’s move, promising to redouble their efforts to implement the Paris agreement and reasserting that it cannot be renegotiated.

 

“He is making a mistake for the future of his country and his people and a mistake for the future of the planet,” Macron said.

The reality is that overall, Trump’s rationale has always been his feeling that the United States had been taken advantage of by most of the other nations of the free world. Trump has argued that the Paris Accord was so unfavorable to US interests that other countries were laughing at America.

 

“The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris agreement,” Trump said. “They went wild. They were so happy. For the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, at a very, very big economic disadvantage.”

 

The president, who recently returned from his first ever foreign trip as US President, added, “We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore — and they won’t be.”

 

This devastating decision was only made because of how Trump has always thought that Barack Obama was an illegitimate president, and he will do anything he can to eliminate any achievements that Obama made during his presidency.

It’s all as simple as that. 

 

And the United States will be paying the price for these bad Trump decisions for many years.

Copyright G.Ater  2017