During his recent announcementaboutthe United Stateswithdrawalfromthe Paris climate agreement which makes our nation the third in the world to not be part of the accord, along with Syria and Nicaragua President Donald Trump repeatedly insistedthathis decision had to do with simple fairness. It was the same kind of sentiment that he frequently conveyed during his presidential campaign: The rest of the world has been disrespecting, mistreating and, worst of all, laughing atus for years.
At what point does America get demeaned? asked the president. 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 dont want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore, and they wont be.
Like candidate Trump, President Trump seems to hearsnickering voicesin his head (presumablyforeign, non-English voices) and believes they are laughing at him and his country. In Trumps paranoid mind, every nation on the planethastaken advantage of America in one way or another, and the Paris agreement is just the latest example of this abuse.Ironically, the insecure man who constantlydemands respect from the rest of the worldis actually in the process of driving his countrys reputation into the ground, and the Paris exit is simply the latestembarrassment.
It is often said it is easier to destroy than to create, and over the past months Donald Trump has proven this maxim correct when it comesto governing. Trumps presidency has been like a violent wreckingball demolishing everything in sight. And nothing has been more grievously damaged by Trump than the United States credibility in the world. Americas global image has collapsed in record time, and with the presidents decision to pull out of the Paris agreement, the most powerful country in the world is well on its way to becoming an international pariah. As the former president of Ireland, Mary Robinson,declared,The U.S. reneging on its commitment to the Paris Agreement renders it a rogue state on the international stage.
As Americas standing in the world crumbles, many people will no doubt recall how Republican politicians regularly claimed during the previous administration that the country was no longer respected under the leadership of President Barack Obama. As with mostRepublican positions,this was flat-out delusional, and polling revealedthat the countrys global image steadily improved under Obama after having fallen to historic lows during George W. Bushs presidency.
One of the most vocal proponents of this fallacious line of attack was, of course, a conspiracy theorist named Donald Trump, who was convinced that everyone was laughing at his country because it had twice elected a Muslim foreigner as president. Today that unhinged man-child is making the world feel somewhat nostalgic for George W. Bushs America. According to Pew Research Center, countries around the world have almost no confidence in Trump(compared to theirhigh confidence in Obama), and the freshman presidenthas turnedthe U.S. intoalaughingstockthat can no longer be trusted by its allies, asGermanys Chancellor Angela Merkelindicatedlast week.
Of course, President Trump continues to maintain that he is restoring the countrys status in the world after the U.S. has been mistreated (and laughed at!) for so many years. For example, he claimed in his exit speech that the Paris agreement gives other countries an economic edge over the United States and 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 countrys expense. Not only that, continued Trump, but the nations that are asking America to stay in the agreement (that is, the rest of the world) are countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and in many cases lax contributions to our critical military alliance. Like most of his speeches, this one was full of falsehoodsand exaggerations, and the president cited industry-funded studies and misinterpreted other onesto make his harebrained case.
The great irony of Trumps begrudging speech (and his parochial worldview in general) is that America has long been the worlds leading imperialist force. If any country qualifies as a bully that has treated other nations unfairly over the past halfa century, it is the United States. This is evidencedby the many overseas coupsthat have been orchestrated by the U.S. government,often to serve the interests of American business,withthe classic case involvingthe United Fruit Company and Guatemala. The majority of Americans have not benefited personally from U.S. foreign policy; it has been themultinational corporations and the power elite, as C. Wright Millsonce called the countrys political and corporate establishments, that have benefited from such interventions.
Consider Americas economy, which Trump claims has been losing for decades because other countries have treated us horribly, stealing our jobs and thenlaughing at us to add insult to injury. This view is so facile and childishit seemsunworthy of comment. But, alas, it is espoused bya very powerful man. Itgoes without sayingthat American workers have suffered over the past 40 years due to numerous factors, including globalization andcorporatetrade deals; that doesnt mean the United Stateshas been losing to other countries. In fact, American businesses have done exceedingly well over the past three decades, as havethe top 1 percent of earners. Only working- and middle-class Americans have been losing in any real sense of the word and not because foreign governments are so cunning and inconsiderate but because of our capitalist economy.
In addition to arguing that the Paris agreement is designed to hurt Americaseconomy, Trump bitterly complained that it was unfair to the U.S. ascompared withthe fate of less-developed countries like China and India. China will be able to increase these emissions by a staggering number of years, said the president, claiming that the Chinese will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. The president then declared that the agreement doesnt eliminate coal jobs; it just transfers those jobs out of America . . .and ships them to foreign countries. This, in typical Trumpian fashion, is extremely misleading. China isactuallyin the process of canceling projects to build coal plants, and its coal consumption has declined since 2013, but such pesky facts are unwelcome in Trumps reactionary, zero-sum worldview.
Once again, the irony here is that America has contributed more than any other country in the worldto climate change and is responsible for nearly a third of the excess carbon that has built up in the atmosphere.In cumulative terms, we certainly own this problem more than anybody else does, saidclimate scholar David G. Victor to The New York Times. Furthermore, Americas per capita carbon emission is more than double that of China (and about eight times that of India).If one were truly interested in fairness, as Trump has claimedto be, thenthe U.S. would be doing much more than it agreed to in the Paris accords.
Withdrawing from the Paris agreement not only erodes Americas credibility and standing in the world, but is an importantstep toward dooming the planet or more accurately dooming the human species. It is somewhat fitting that the United States, under the leadership ofa vulgar and self-absorbedman who epitomizes the ugly American, may end up ensuring the collapse of human civilization. During the election campaign, many speculated that the narcissistic Trump was running for president because he had realized in old age that he would quickly be forgotten after he died. Whether that was true,Trumpwill doubtless be remembered now as the man who signaled the end of the American epoch and perhaps the human era as well.
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Donald Trump is destroying America's standing in the world and may end up destroying the world - Salon