Trump’s speech, in which he formally announced he was withdrawing us from the Paris climate agreement to renegotiate it into something he thinks is more “fair,” made us the laughingstock of the world. Germany, Italy and France already said straight out that the deal will not be renegotiated. Since this isn’t a business deal, there’s no reason to think they’ll back off of that position. Also, now China is poised to take over our position as a global leader on several fronts. But something Trump said in his speech goes beyond his usually embarrassing behavior:
We don’t want other countries laughing at us.”
Ahem…we’re sorry…but what??? We don’t want other countries laughing at us? They already are! We elected this buffoon who tweets nonsense in the middle of the night, praises the world’s worst dictators, and can’t understand a damn thing about anything in government or foreign affairs.
We pulled out of an agreement that literally only two countries on the face of the planet hadn’t ratified, and Trump’s loyal subjects believe that was just a jumping off point. We’re in the ranks of Syria and Nicaragua – hardly major world influencers. If he thinks the world isn’t laughing at us for that (in addition to being ridiculously angry with us), then he’s denser than we thought.
Trump also misstated data from an MIT study that says, if every country sticks to their pledges in the Paris agreement, we can slow global warming down by 0.6 degrees to 1.1 degrees. He claimed that the agreement will only reduce global warming by 0.2 degrees, which is way off base.
His whole rationale is that this agreement is a redistribution of wealth from the U.S. to everyone else. He claimed that the world went nuts when the agreement was signed specifically because it gave them an economic advantage over us. He also said that China can do whatever it wants, whether that’s building coal plants or anything else, and we can’t. That’s a load of bullcookies, too.
He thinks the world isn’t laughing at us over any of his total ignorance and complete lack of brainpower? Please. He’s the reason the world laughs at us now. They don’t see us as strong and worthy of respect. They see us as an object of ridicule because of him.
Featured image by Win McNamee via Getty Images
