MIKE PENCE
Good afternoon. Secretary Mnuchin , Secretary Ross, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, members of Congress, distinguished guests, on behalf of the First Family, welcome to the White House.
You know, it’s the greatest privilege of my life to serve as Vice President to a president who is fighting every day to make America great again. Since the first day of this administration, President Donald Trump has been working tirelessly to keep the promises that he made to the American people. President Trump has been reforming health care, enforcing our laws, ending illegal immigration, rebuilding our military, and this president has been rolling back excessive regulations and unfair trade practices that were stifling American jobs. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, American business are growing again, investing in America again, and they’re creating jobs in this country instead of shipping jobs overseas. Thanks to President Donald Trump, America is back.
And just last week we all witnessed the bold leadership of an American president on the world stage, putting America first. From the Middle East to Europe, as leader of the free world, President Trump reaffirmed historic alliances, forged new relationships, and called on the wider world to confront the threat of terrorism in new and renewed ways. And by the action the president will announce today, the American people and the wider world will see once again, our president is choosing to put American jobs and American consumers first. Our president is choosing to put American energy and American industry first. And by his action today, President Donald Trump is choosing to put the forgotten men and women of America first.
So with gratitude for his leadership and admiration for his unwavering commitment to the American people, it is now my high honor and distinct privilege to introduce to all of you the President of the United States of America – President Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP
Thank you very much. Thank you. I would like to begin by addressing the terrorist attack in Manila. We’re closely monitoring the situation and I will continue to give updates, anything happens during this period of time, but it is really very sad as to what’s going on throughout the world with terror. Our thoughts and our prayers are with all of those affected.
Here, President Trump is referring to a lockdown at a luxury resort complex in the Philippines early Friday morning local time.
Contrary to what the president said, however, the Philippine national police chief said there was no concrete evidence the attack was related to terrorism. The gunman stole gambling chips, shot an LED monitor and set tables on fire, but he did not shoot at people he met, according to the Associated Press.
A city in the southern portion of the Philippines is currently under siege by militants linked to the Islamic State, the AP says, but Manila is in the northern part of the country.
The president’s opening statement about the attack at a Manila casino was dictated by events, but it’s also a telling indication of Trump’s priorities. He is far more concerned with the threat posed by terrorism than with climate change, even dismissing the latter as a “hoax” in the past. In an interview with the New York Times after last year’s election, Trump acknowledged “some connectivity” between human activity and a changing climate. But in recent days aides have refused to comment on the president’s climate beliefs. And Trump named a notable climate skeptic, Scott Pruitt, as his EPA administrator, responsible for reversing much of the previous administration’s climate agenda.
Before we discuss the Paris Accord, I’d like to begin with an update on our tremendous, absolutely tremendous, economic progress since election day on Nov. 8. The economy is starting to come back and very, very rapidly.
Last week, the Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at an annual rate of 1.2 percent in the first quarter of 2017. That’s hardly “rapid.” In fact, it’s a decline from the fourth quarter of 2016, when GDP grew at a 2.1 percent annual rate.
Trump’s proposed policies would depend upon much faster growth than that — his budget was written with an assumption of steady 3 percent growth in the coming years, which economists say is likely unsustainable.
We’ve added $3.3 trillion in stock market value to our economy and more than a million private sector jobs. I’ve just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was a very, very successful trip, believe me.
According to data from the Labor Department, private sector industries added 805,000 jobs between January and May 2017. That’s well short of 1 million, and it also includes jobs created in January — during most of which Barack Obama was still president. This also includes data from Friday’s jobs report for May, which was released after Trump’s speech. (This annotation was updated on June 2.)
In my meetings at the G7, we have taken historic steps to demand fair and reciprocal trade that gives Americans a level playing field against other nations. We’re also working very hard for peace in the Middle East, and perhaps even peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Our attacks on terrorism are greatly stepped up and you see that, you see it all over. From the previous administration, including getting many other countries to make major contributions to the fight against terror. Big big contributions are being made by countries that weren’t doing so much in the form of contribution.
One by one, we are keeping the promises I made to the American people during my campaign for president. Whether it’s cutting job-killing regulations, appointing and confirming a tremendous Supreme Court justice, putting in place tough new ethics rules, achieving a record reduction in illegal immigration on our southern border, or bringing jobs, plants and factories back into the United States at numbers which no one, until this point, thought even possible. And believe me, we’ve just begun. The fruits of our labor will be seen very shortly, even more so.
Trump did sign an executive order in January that would not allow people appointed to executive agencies to lobby their own agencies for five years after leaving the administration. It imposed a lifetime ban on working for foreign governments. The order also stopped appointees from working on issues involving their former employers and from working in areas for which they had lobbied during the two years prior to joining the administration.
(As NPR’s Tamara Keith reported at the time, the order appeared to draw upon rules from two Democratic presidents Trump had heavily criticized: Clinton and Obama.)
These comments come a day after Trump’s administration released records showing that it had sought 14 waivers exempting executive branch employees from ethics rules. As NPR’s Peter Overby reported, people covered by these waivers include “three former corporate lobbyists [who] will keep working on the issues they dealt with before: finance, energy and the environment.”
On these issues, and so many more, we’re following through on our commitments and I don’t want anything to get in our way. I am fighting every day for the great people of this country. Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. Thank you.
But begin negotiations to re-enter, either the Paris Accord or in, really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we’re getting out. But will we 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.
As president, I can put no other consideration before the well-being of American citizens. 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, leaving American workers, who I love, and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lowered wages, shuttered factories and vastly diminished economic production. Thus as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country. This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund, which is costing the United States a vast fortune.
President Trump has repeatedly called the Paris accord a "bad deal" for the U.S. and said it will hurt the economy. One big outlay is the Green Climate Fund set up under the deal. President Barack Obama had committed the U.S. to contributing $3 billion to the fund, which aims to help developing countries adapt to climate change and develop low-emission energy technologies. Under Obama, the U.S. transferred $1 billion, but Trump's budget proposal does not include payments for the rest. But the White House could easily have stayed in the Paris accord even as it opted not to pay into the climate fund or impose emissions cuts. Read more here.
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. This includes 440,000 fewer manufacturing jobs – not what we need, believe me, this is not what we need, including automobile jobs and the further decimation of vital American industries on which countless communities rely. They rely for so much and we would be giving them so little.
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%. Cement – down 23%. Iron and steel – down 38%. Coal – and I happen to love the coal miners – down 86%. Natural gas down 31%.
The cost to the economy at this time would be close to three trillion dollars 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.
Not only does this deal subject our citizens to harsh economic restrictions, it fails to live up to our environmental ideals. As someone who cares deeply about the environment, which I do, I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States, which is what it does. The world’s leader in environmental protection while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters.
For example, under the agreement, China will be able to increase the emissions by a staggering number of years – 13. They can do whatever they want for 13 years. Not us. India makes its participation contingent on receiving billions and billions and 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.
Under the Paris Agreement, China has pledged to halt the growth in its carbon emissions by 2030, 13 years from now. But China is on track to beat that target date by many years, according to the Climate Action Tracker. India is also ahead of schedule in meeting its Paris commitments.
Read more about India’s commitments here, as reported by NPR’s Rebecca Hersher in October 2016.
Further, while the current agreement effectively blocks the development of clean coal in America, which it does and the mines are starting to open up, we’re having a big opening in two weeks, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, so many places. A big opening of a big new mine, it’s unheard of. For many many years, that hasn’t happened. They asked me if I’d go. I’m going to try.
China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement.
India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020. Think of it. India can double its coal production. We’re supposed to get rid of ours. Even Europe is allowed to continue construction of coal plants.
In short, 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. They went wild. They were so happy.
For the simple reason that it put our country, the United States of America, which we all love, 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 in 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. It’s great wealth. It’s phenomenal wealth. Not so long ago, we had no idea we had such wealth. 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.
During the campaign, President Trump regularly blasted the Obama administration for holding back domestic oil and gas production with excessive regulations. The fact is the United States extracts more oil and gas than any other nation in the world. That’s been the case every year since 2012, and is largely due to a domestic oil and gas boom powered by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Solar and wind energy has surged as well, due to government incentives, as well as increasingly cheap production costs.
At one percent growth, renewable sources of energy can meet some of our domestic demand but at three or four percent growth, which I expect, we need all forms of available American energy or our country will be at grave risk of brownouts and blackouts.
All commitments under the Paris Agreement are purely voluntary. It is exceedingly unlikely that the U.S. would voluntarily cut its power supply to the point where blackouts are a problem.
Moreover, renewables are not the only form of low-carbon energy. Natural gas has half the greenhouse gases that coal does and has and will continue to replace coal-fired power plants. Natural gas is meeting demand easily, and recent research from the industry suggests that there’s a bountiful supply to keep that trend going.
Our businesses will come to a halt, in many cases, and the American family will suffer the consequences in the form of lost jobs and a very diminished quality of life. Even if the Paris Agreement were implemented in full, with total compliance from all nations, it is estimated it would only produce a 2/10 of one degree – think of that. This much….Celsius reduction in global temperature by the year 2100. Tiny tiny amount.
The agreement would shave an additional 0.2 degrees Celsius beyond existing treaties and obligations, according to a 2015 MIT report. Other estimates dispute that number; the independent Climate Action Tracker group suggests Paris could keep temperatures down by 0.8 degrees C. Supporters of the deal point out that this would just be the start. Nations are supposed to come back to the table and increase their commitments every five years. In the long run, advocates of the agreement say it provides a framework for future reductions in emissions.
NPR’s Scott Detrow adds: Here’s a good overview of how the agreement approached that 2-degree increase, which is often referred to as “the guardrail.”
In fact, fourteen days of carbon emissions from China alone would wipe out the gains from America...and this is an incredible statistic, would totally wipe out the gains from America’s expected reductions in the year 2030. After we’ve had to spend billions and billions of dollars, lost jobs and closed factories and suffered much higher energy cost 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. The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally-friendly country on earth. We’ll be the cleanest. We’re going to have the cleanest air. We’re going to have the cleanest water. We will be environmentally-friendly but we’re not going to put our business out of work. We’re not going to lose our jobs. We’re going to grow. We’re going to grow rapidly.
And I think you just read, it just came out minutes ago, the Small Business Report, small businesses as of just now are booming...hiring people, one of the best reports they’ve seen in many years.
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.
Senior administration officials say the president would not sign on to any renegotiated agreement that imposes burdens on the U.S. not shared by other countries. There’s no indication that the other 194 countries in the Paris accord are interested in reopening talks with the United States. Leaders of Germany, France and Italy dismissed the idea of renegotiation. “We deem the momentum generated in Paris in December 2015 irreversible and we firmly believe that the Paris Agreement cannot be renegotiated since it is a vital instrument for our planet, societies and economies,” they said in a joint statement.
So if the obstructionists want to get together with me, let’s make them non- obstructionists. We will all sit down and we will get back into the deal and we will make it good and we won’t be closing up our factories and we won’t be losing our jobs and we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people who represent either the Paris Accord or something we can do that’s much better than the Paris Accord and I think the people of our country will be thrilled. And I think the people of the world will be thrilled. But until we do that, we’re out of the agreement.
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. That’s not going to happen while I’m president. I’m sorry.
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.
Our tax bill is moving along in Congress, and I believe it’s doing very well. I think a lot of people will be very pleasantly surprised. The Republicans are working very hard. We’d love to have support from the Democrats but we may have to go it alone. But it’s going very well.
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.
At what point does America get demeaned? At what point do they start laughing at us, as a country? We want fair treatment for its citizens and we want fair treatment for our taxpayers. We don’t want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be. They won’t be. I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.
Allegheny County, which encompasses Pittsburgh, actually voted for Hillary Clinton in November — 56 percent to 40 percent. And the city itself voted for Clinton by about 80 percent, according to Mayor Bill Peduto. Trump did, however, swamp Clinton in the suburban counties surrounding Pittsburgh.
The Pittsburgh mayor also said on Twitter that even though Trump is withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, the city will continue to follow the guidelines set forth in it.
Peduto is not the only one, either — 61 U.S. mayors said in a statement on Thursday that they would “adopt, honor, and uphold the commitments to the goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement. We will intensify efforts to meet each of our cities’ current climate goals, push for new action to meet the 1.5 degrees Celsius target, and work together to create a 21st century clean energy economy.” Those reaffirming their commitment to the Paris Agreement include the mayors of Los Angeles, Boston, New York, Chicago, Houston, Seattle, Philadelphia and Atlanta.
While Pennsylvania’s coal jobs have flatlined in recent decades, the state has seen a boom in direct and indirect jobs tied to natural gas drilling. During that period, Pittsburgh has become a hub for the natural gas industry.
The fastest way for the United States to reach its Paris commitments would be to shift away from coal-fired power plants. And one of the biggest beneficiaries of that shift would be natural gas.
So sticking to the Paris accord — and the Environmental Protection Agency regulations that the Obama administration set up to reach its Paris goals — would very likely have helped, not hurt, Pittsburgh.
(Follow StateImpact Pennsylvania for coverage of energy, environment and the economy in the state.)
I promised I would exit and renegotiate any deal which fails to serve America’s interest. Many trade deals will soon be under renegotiation. Very rarely do we have a deal that works rot his country. But they’ll soon be under renegotiation. The process has begun from day one.
But now we’re down to business. 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 anyone else. Many other countries haven’t spent anything. And many of them will never pay one dime.
The Green Climate Fund that President Trump referred to as a giveaway to countries that will compete with the U.S. economy is a planned assistance fund that would transfer aid from developed nations to developing nations. The goal is a continuing fund of $100 billion a year starting in 2020. What the president did not note is that the funds are to be used for climate-related projects to help countries green up their energy economies and lower their emissions, not produce goods aimed for export. Also, it is expected that a substantial portion of those funds will be used to purchase technology and services from the developed world to lower emissions in the recipient countries.
Additionally, over half the GCF is expected to come from private investors and banks, not national government treasuries or taxpayers. So far, the fund has raised several billion dollars (including just less than $1 billion from the U.S. government), with about half coming from private sources.
The Green Fund would likely obligate the United States to commit potentially tens of billions of dollars, of which the United States has already handed over $1 billion. Nobody else is even close. Most of them haven’t even paid anything. Including funds raided out of America’s budget for the war against terrorism. That’s where they came. Believe me, they didn’t come from me. They came just before I came into office. Not good. And not good the way they took the money.
Former President Obama pledged $3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, of which $1 billion was delivered. The U.S. commitment was capped at 30 percent of the fund’s total, with that share expected to decline over time as more countries kicked in.
In 2015, the United Nations’ departing top climate officials reportedly described the 100 billion dollars per year as “peanuts.” And stated that the 100 billion dollars is the tail that wags the dog. 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 they money is going to. Nobody’s been able to say, where is it going to?
Of course, the world’s top polluters have no affirmative obligations under the Green Fund, which we terminated. America is twenty trillion dollars in debt, cash-strapped cities cannot hire enough police officers or fix vile infrastructure, millions of our citizens are out of work and yet, under the Paris Accord, billions of dollars that ought to be invested right there in America, will be sent to the very countries that have taken our factories and our jobs away from us. So think of that. There are serious legal and constitutional issues as well.
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.
The internal White House debate over whether to withdraw from the Paris accord pitted “nationalists” like chief strategist Steve Bannon — who wanted to pull out — against “globalists” like economic adviser Gary Cohn, who wanted to stay in. The president ultimately sided with the nationalists, who are deeply suspicious of international agreements like the Paris accord. This “America first” posture is consistent with Trump’s populist campaign but marks a break with decades of bipartisan U.S. foreign policy.
Our Constitution is unique among all 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 just 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 risk and put us at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world.
It is time to exit the Paris Accord. And time to pursue a new deal that protects the environment, our companies, our citizens and our country. It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Mich.; and Pittsburgh, Pa.; along with many many other locations in our country, before Paris, France. It is time to make America great again.
Mahoning County, Ohio (which includes Youngstown), narrowly voted for Clinton, 49.8 percent to 46.8 percent. Wayne County, Mich. (Detroit), went heavily for Clinton over Trump, nearly 66.8 percent to 29.5 percent.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Very important. I’d like to ask Scott Pruitt, who most of you know and respect, as I do, just to say a few words. Scott, please.
SCOTT PRUITT
Thank you, Mr. President. Your decision today to exit the Paris Accord reflects your unflinching commitment to put America first and by exiting, you’re fulfilling yet one more campaign promise to the American people. Please know that I'm thankful for your fortitude, your courage, and your steadfastness as you serve and lead our country.
America finally has a leader who answers only to the people, not to the special interests who've had their way for way too long. In everything you do, Mr. President, you're fighting for the forgotten men and women across this country. You're a champion for the hardworking citizens all across this land who just want a government that listens to them and represents their interest.
You have promised to put America first in all that you do and you've done that in any number of ways, from trade to national security, to protecting our border, to rightsizing Washington D.C. And today, you've put America first, with regard to international agreements and the environment.
This is an historic restoration of American economic independence, one that will benefit the working class, the working poor, and working people of all stripes. With this action, you have declared that the people are rulers of this country once again. And it should be noted, that we as a nation do it better than anyone in the world, in striking the balance between growing our economy, growing jobs, while also being a good steward of our environment. We owe no apologies to other nations for our environmental stewardship. After all, before the Paris Accord was ever signed, America had reduce