“…our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.”
~President
Donald J. Trump, patriot, on his decision to exit the Paris Climate Accords
I’m no great
fan of Donald Trump, but as a big fan of objective argumentation and the
inherent right to the pursuit of self-interest, I enthusiastically applauded
his speech explaining his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate
Accords a.k.a. The Big Swindle. Even
with Trump’s ad-libbing I thought he laid out the case for withdrawal in an
admirably succinct, compelling and persuasive way for anyone who still embraces
logic and believes in the right of Americans to look out for their own economic
interests. Little did I know how small
that group has become.
The
following remarks are my selected excerpts from Trump’s June 1st
Rose Garden speech announcing the withdrawal.
If you didn’t already hear or read the speech, please peruse them so
that the absurdity of the Left’s reactions, discussed afterwards, can be
appreciated in full context:
The Paris Climate Accord is simply
the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages
the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries….
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 according to
the National Economic Research Associates.
According to this same study, by
2040, compliance with the commitments put into place by the previous
administration would cut production for the following sectors: paper down 12
percent; cement down 23 percent; iron and steel down 38 percent; coal … down 86
percent; natural gas down 31 percent. 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.
…I cannot in good conscience support
a deal that punishes the United States … while imposing no meaningful
obligations on the world’s leading polluters.
…under the agreement, China … can do
whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation
contingent on receiving 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.
...the agreement doesn’t eliminate
coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States,
and ships them to foreign countries.
This agreement is less about the
climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the
United States. The rest of the world applauded when we signed the Paris
Agreement… for the simple reason that it [put] … the United States of America…at a
very, very big economic disadvantage. A cynic would say the obvious reason for
economic competitors and their wish to see us remain in the agreement is so
that we continue to suffer this self-inflicted major economic wound. We would
find it very hard to compete with other countries from other parts of the
world.
We have among the most abundant
energy reserves on the planet, sufficient to lift millions of America’s poorest
workers out of poverty. Yet, under this agreement, we are effectively putting
these reserves under lock and key, taking away the great wealth of our nation …
and leaving millions and millions of families trapped in poverty and
joblessness.
The agreement is a massive
redistribution of United States wealth to other countries.
Even if the Paris Agreement were
implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it
would only produce a two-tenths of one degree…Celsius reduction in global
temperature by the year 2100. … In fact, 14 days of carbon emissions from China
alone would wipe out the gains from America — and … would totally wipe out the
gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030, after we have had to
spend billions and billions of dollars, lost jobs, closed factories, and
suffered much higher energy costs for our businesses and for our homes.
As the Wall Street Journal wrote this
morning: “The reality is that withdrawing is in America’s economic interest and
won’t matter much to the climate.”
We will be environmentally friendly,
but we’re not going to put our businesses out of work and we’re not going to
lose our jobs. We’re going to grow; we’re going to grow rapidly.
I’m willing to immediately work with
Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris, under the terms
that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal
that protects our country and its taxpayers.
I will work to ensure that America
remains the world’s leader on environmental issues, but under a framework that
is fair and where the burdens and responsibilities are equally shared among the
many nations all around the world.
No responsible leader can put the
workers — and the people — of their country at this debilitating and tremendous
disadvantage. The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States, while
empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries, should dispel any doubt
as to the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our magnificent
country tied up and bound down by this agreement: It’s to give their country an
economic edge over the United States.
My job as President is to do
everything within my power to give America a level playing field and to create
the economic, regulatory and tax structures that make America the most
prosperous and productive country on Earth, and with the highest standard of
living and the highest standard of environmental protection.
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. You see what’s happening. It’s pretty
obvious to those that want to keep an open mind.
I was elected to represent the
citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Beyond the severe energy restrictions
inflicted by the Paris Accord, it includes yet another scheme to redistribute
wealth out of the United States through the so-called Green Climate Fund — nice
name — which calls for developed countries to send $100 billion to developing
countries all on top of America’s existing and massive foreign aid payments. So
we’re going to be paying billions and billions and billions of dollars, and
we’re already way ahead of anybody else. Many of the other countries haven’t
spent anything, and many of them will never pay one dime.
In 2015, the Green Climate Fund’s executive
director reportedly stated that estimated funding needed would increase to $450
billion per year after 2020. And nobody even knows where the money is going to.
America is $20 trillion in debt.
Cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers or fix vital
infrastructure. Millions of our citizens are out of work. And yet, under the
Paris Accord, billions of dollars that ought to be invested right here in America
will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs
away from us.
Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and
across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy
than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal
from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty.
Our Constitution is unique among all
the nations of the world, and it is my highest obligation and greatest honor to
protect it. And I will.
Staying in the agreement could also
pose serious obstacles for the United States as we begin the process of
unlocking the restrictions on America’s abundant energy reserves, which we have
started very strongly. It would once have been unthinkable that an international
agreement could prevent the United States from conducting its own domestic
economic affairs, but this is the new reality we face if we do not leave the
agreement or if we do not negotiate a far better deal.
The risks grow as historically these
agreements only tend to become more and more ambitious over time. In other
words, the Paris framework is a starting point — as bad as it is — not an end
point. And exiting the agreement protects the United States from future
intrusions on the United States’ sovereignty and massive future legal
liability. Believe me, we have massive legal liability if we stay in.
As President, I have one obligation,
and that obligation is to the American people. The Paris Accord would undermine
our economy, hamstring our workers, weaken our sovereignty, impose unacceptable
legal risks, and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of
the world.
Unless
someone can prove that Trump is lying about what’s in the Accord, no sane
person could rationally conclude that the Paris Accords were good for America. The definitive proof of this, the nail in the
coffin – so to speak, is the fact that it was negotiated by our former
Leftist-in-Chief, Barack Hussein Obama, the most anti-American president in
this nation’s history.
The NYT’s Maureen
Dowd writes,
“We’ve been conditioned by Hollywood
to see the president of the United States step up to the lectern to confidently
tell us how he will combat the existential threat to the planet — be it aliens,
asteroids, tidal waves, volcanoes, killer sharks, killer robots or a
500-billion-ton comet the size of New York City. So it was quite stunning to see the president
of the United States step up to the lectern to declare himself the existential
threat to the planet.”
Apparently
Ms. Dowd has been watching movies as a way of learning about existential
threats and presidential heroism. She got
goosebumps when Barack Obama was valiantly saving the planet from killer
climate change. That’s so special, isn’t
it? But seriously, what you’ll note if
you read this column by this top-notch, leftwing opinion journalist for the NYT
is that she didn’t rebut even a single one of the persuasive points made by
Donald Trump. Her great refutation to
Trump consisted entirely of name-calling.
Is that all you’ve got, Maureen?
How pathetic.
From Sasha
Abramsky at The Nation:
“Trump Echoed Hitler in His Speech
Withdrawing From the Paris Climate Accord”
Oh no, not
Hitler!
From Staff
Writer Lauren McCauley at Common Dreams (Breaking News & Views for the
Progressive Community):
“'Destructive Fossil Fuel Puppet'
Trump Ditches Climate Deal with Fact-Free Speech”
But the
closest McCauley’s article comes to challenging Trump’s facts was to say that,
“Long-debunked fossil fuel industry
talking points about lost jobs and economic "suffering" peppered the
speech.” No link to this supposedly
well-known de-bunking was included with the article, naturally.
Nancy Pelosi
claimed Trump was “dishonoring
God” by pulling out of the Accord.
Ruh Roh! It seems that not volunteering to be a whipping boy for the rest of the world dishonors God but supporting abortion does not.
Bernie
Sanders said, “Despite Trump’s view that
he knows more than virtually the entire scientific community, the American
people will move forward and do everything we can to combat the planetary
crisis of climate change and I wanted you to know that.”
Everything
except make any personal sacrifices, as evidenced by the fact that Sanders is
jetting around the world for promotion of his new book. Apparently “the planetary crisis of climate
change” takes a backseat to making money and pursuing political power for the radical Left.
Michael
Russnow, Contributor to the The Huffington Post, wrote:
“Now That Trump’s Trashed The Paris
Climate Accord: Isn’t This Enough To Discuss Changing The Presidential Election
System?”
Mr. Russnow
gives no
rebuttal whatsoever to the arguments Trump made for withdrawing from the
Accord, yet he’s using this “outrage” to justify calling for a national
referendum on the way we vote. Who says
there isn’t a method to the Left’s madness?
Not me!
Graham
Readfearn of The Guardian wrote:
“Trump’s Paris exit: climate science
denial industry has just had its greatest victory”
But Readfearn
is yet another leftist who references the “long-debunked” talking points
without providing any actual evidence of this famous debunking. What’s worse is that he obsesses about the
supposed denial over climate change while ignoring the economic costs, the absence
of requirements for major polluters like China and India, and that tiny,
best-case reward for Americans’ great sacrifice.
The leftists
have made it clear that they have no intention of ever engaging in a rational
debate with respect to the many reasonable arguments Trump outlined for his
decision to pull out of Paris. Arguments
which, by the way, are not Trump’s invention but are those that respected
scientists, economists and other concerned Americans have been putting forth
all along, only to be silenced by the Left.
Rather than engage in honest debate the Left has preferred to follow the
lead of Barack Obama who arrogantly declared many times, “The debate is
over.” Our response to that declaration
was the election of Donald Trump.
I would love
nothing more than to sneer that now it’s our turn to say, “The debate is over;”
but the truth is that with Donald Trump holding a televised address in the
White House Rose Garden to explain to Americans, point by point, why the Paris Accords were a bad deal for this
country, the debate has finally just begun.
And for that I thank our president.
~CW
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