It was the perfect capper for a week in which many supporters of President Trump burned their MAGA hats in protest over what they see as betrayal. After apparently making a deal with Democrats to push DACA amnesty through Congress, Trump has ostensibly changed his mind about another subject: Global warming.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WON’T WITHDRAW FROM PARIS CLIMATE DEAL, bleated the Wall Street Journal headline on Saturday.
And another round of groans ensued.
According to the paper, European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete told reporters: “The U.S. has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord, but they will try to review the terms on which they could be engaged under this agreement.”
The article immediately drew denials from the White House, which issued a statement saying, “There has been no change in the United States’ position on the Paris agreement. As the President has made abundantly clear, the US is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms more favorable to our country.”
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders added to the chorus on Twitter. “Our position on the Paris agreement has not changed,” she wrote. “@POTUS has been clear, US withdrawing unless we get pro-America terms.”
According to the Wall Street Journal story, Trump changed his mind on the deal after meeting with ministers from Canada, China, and the EU in Montreal.
Trump announced earlier this year that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement unless the signatory countries could return with a deal more favorable to American interests. The Agreement, signed during the Obama administration, brought 196 countries together for a pact aimed at reducing carbon emissions. Each country came up with its own standards for carbon reduction; as for the U.S., we vowed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 26% with a deadline of 2030.
More controversially, the Agreement also compelled rich countries like the U.S. to subsidize poorer countries as they attempt to wean themselves off of fossil fuels.
On Fox News Sunday, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster also denied the accuracy of the Wall Street Journal’s reporting.
“That’s a false report,” McMaster said. “The president decided to pull out of the Paris accord because it was a bad deal for the American people, and because it’s a bad deal for the environment. It gave the worst polluters the ability to continue polluting and emitting carbon without significantly reducing those levels.”
Trump said from the beginning that he would be open to re-entering the Paris Agreement if he could secure better terms from the negotiating parties. But unless those terms allow the U.S. to continue putting our own energy interests FAR ahead of these phony carbon emissions goals – and take these absurd subsidies off the table – then it’s hard to imagine how re-entry could be truly favorable.
We’d like to file this under “fake news,” but with the way things have been going lately, we wonder…
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