President Trump’s America-first mantra steamrolled over the objections of lawmakers, top CEOs, the Pentagon, the U.N. and even his own daughter, as he announced Thursday that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the landmark Paris climate accord to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
“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,” Mr. Trump said to applause from critics of the Paris deal assembled on the White House lawn. “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” he continued. “I promised I would exit or renegotiate any deal that doesn’t serve America’s interests.
Mr. Trump, though, delivered a detailed evisceration of the deal Mr. Obama signed, saying it crushes American businesses, unnecessarily funnels billions of dollars to other nations and allows the world’s top polluter, China, to do little to curb its own emissions for the next 13 years.
Mr. Obama had committed the U.S. to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025, while China needs only to cap its pollution by 2030. The pact also calls on America to commit billions of dollars to the U.N.’s Green Climate Fund to pay developing countries to develop cleaner energy. Those terms, Mr. Trump said, are unacceptable.
“Compliance with the terms of the Paris accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million lost jobs by 2025,” Mr. Trump said, citing numbers from a recent National Economic Research Associates study. “The cost to the economy at this time would be close to $3 trillion in lost GDP and 6.5 million industrial jobs, while households would have $7,000 less income, and, in many cases, much worse than that.”