Trump is putting the US in hot, rising water

Fresh off a disastrous trip spent alienating America’s allies and cozying up to authoritarian governments, President Donald Trump has chosen his new target for chaos: Planet Earth.

Trump plans to officially withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accords. The U.S. was one of 195 countries which signed the agreement in April 2016, and it was seen as the first and largest step forward to curb global warming and climate change in a globally unified agreement.

{mosads}The agreement has three main goals: limit the rise of global temperatures to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and if possible, limit the increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels; protect food production from the effects of climate change through adaptive innovation; provide access to resources for countries in need of climate-resistant development and greenhouse gas reduction.

While China and a majority of the other signatories have pledged to hold to the agreement should the United States back out, experts believe that the agreement would quickly succumb to other countries following suit.

Trump’s decision to exit the Paris agreement seems to be based to his fallback “America First” reasoning.

His worldview is one in which the United States has been swindled by the global market and political forces in order to diminish American power abroad.

In November 2012, he tweeted, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” 

That the Chinese have been out-competing American manufacturers for decades doesn’t seem to have crossed his mind, except when he looks for factories to produce his own clothing line.

Trump’s insistence on harming the climate for the betterment of the American economy is also firmly rooted in his belief that coal production will renew America’s blue-collar workers.

He has frequently hailed coal as a necessity for the economic betterment of rural workers (read: voters). However, experts agree that American coal mining jobs lost to China will not be returning to the United States, regardless of whether Trump believes it or not.

In opening the door for increased domestic coal mining, Trump is setting up his supporters to be quickly replaced by automation, a trend that has already begun in many blue-collar industries.

In fact, upon the news that Trump plans to withdraw from the Paris agreement sent coal stock plummeting. Many coal companies have expressed concern for exiting the deal, saying that it could harm their interests abroad. 

Widespread condemnation of the decision has also come from companies such as ExxonMobil, Walmart, and Tesla.

Trump isn’t alone in wanting to leave the Paris deal. White House advisor Steve Bannon and EPA Director Scott Pruitt have repeatedly pressured the president to pull the United States from the accords. 

But like most days in the Trump White House, it is a house divided. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, formerly the CEO of ExxonMobil, has reportedly fiercely defended remaining in the agreement.

The logic for leaving the Paris accords does not hold up to the language of the agreement itself. A major criticism of the plan was that there is no overarching enforcement mechanism to keep countries in line with the treaty.

Each country presents its “nationally determined contribution,” a figure of how much they are able, or willing, to contribute, and the agreement essentially runs on peer pressure to maintain those levels.

Countries are also free to raise or lower their previously submitted contribution. Basically, the treaty is voluntary. If Trump were to keep the United States in the agreement, he could just as easily disregard it.

At the end of the day, leaving the Paris agreement is a mistake in a number of ways. Doing so would distance the United States from its allies across the world; disarm a major breakthrough, not only for the global climate crisis, but also for international diplomacy in general; and further weaken America’s standing abroad. 

Once again, Trump’s “America First” philosophy is having the exact opposite effect.

José Aristimuño is CEO and Founder of NOW Strategies, former deputy national press secretary of the Democratic Party and former director of Hispanic Media for Governor O’Malley’s Presidential Campaign.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.