President Donald Trump announced at a White House ceremony on June 1 that the United States would be withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord.
“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 new transaction with terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” he said.
The President made it clear that he was not interested in the current deal, which he felt gave too much leeway to other big polluters like China and India, but demanded too much sacrifice from the United States.
He also said that he was open to negotiating a better deal.
“We are getting out. We will negotiate but we will try to make a deal that’s fair,” said Trump.
“If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”
President Trump said that to fuel the economic growth America needed to sustain its way of life, renewables would not be sufficient. To achieve the kind of growth the country needed, he said, America would need to use all its available energy resources.
The President made it clear also that he was not “against” the environment. He wants America to be the cleanest country in the world.
The Paris accords, he claimed, were not about improving the environment—the President pointed out that all the gain America could create by sacrificing would be wiped out by two weeks of China’s coal-plant emissions—but about handicapping the nation.
American jobs and American prosperity were his first priorities, the President said, and he did not feel the Paris accords served them well.
