For the last fortnight, Trump has presented himself to the world as the caricature of the ugly American: loud, boorish and ill-informed. For nine days in Europe and the Middle East, Trump shoved, hectored and lectured, betraying confidences and demonstrating an ignorance of world affairs.
The French president applied a crushing grip to Trump’s tiny hands to show that he wouldn’t be bullied, and the German chancellor suggested that Europe may need to go it alone after 70 years, without its suddenly flaky ally. The pope gently conveyed disdain.
VIDEO - World leaders criticize Trump's choice to exit Paris climate deal Heads of state from around the world react to President Trump's decision to leave the Paris climate agreement at the beginning of June. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)
Trump would have been humiliated if he were capable of feeling shame, but on some level even he must have known he was being dismissed, for he responded as he does when ridiculed — with still more cartoonish bluster.
The withdrawal from the world climate accord itself wasn’t terribly surprising, but the way he did it was a thumb in the eye to the rest of humanity. Trump didn’t merely state a principled disagreement. He turned the Rose Garden, where Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat once joined hands, into a setting for a political rally, and he delivered a campaign speech against the world.
“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,” he charged.
“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,” he alleged.
“Foreign lobbyists wished to keep our magnificent country tied up and bound down by this agreement,” he declared. “It’s to give their country an economic edge over the United States.”
It was less a statement of policy than a paranoid scream about devious foreigners scheming to cheat the United States. In reality, Trump was breaking with the whole world — more than 190 other nations that had made numerous concessions to U.S. demands — and siding with two outliers, war-ravaged Syria and Nicaragua .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/31/why-nicaragua-and-syria-didnt-join-the-paris-climate-accord/?utm_term=.53ac5fd5913e .. (because the agreement didn’t go far enough). And Trump’s guests in the Rose Garden applauded and cheered this gratuitous insult that accompanied Trump’s abdication of American leadership. A Marine jazz quartet performed.
Trump seemed to know little about the accord he was trashing. He proclaimed, “I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to .?.?. negotiate our way back into Paris.” Was he unaware that he had to negotiate with world leaders, not his domestic opponents? “And we’ll sit down with the Democrats and all of the people that represent either the Paris accord or something that we can do that’s much better,” he added.
Instead, he chose to taunt world leaders with jingoistic rhetoric, mocking the accord’s “so-called Green Climate Fund — nice name” and announcing, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” He accused other signatories of being deadbeats who “went wild” when America agreed to this “massive redistribution of United States wealth.”
A similar pattern of belligerence has hobbled Trump’s presidency. His clumsy attempts to ram health-care reform through Congress have stalled his agenda even though his party controls both chambers, and his ham-handed efforts to shut down the Russia investigation saddled him with a special counsel.
In foreign affairs, Trump’s undue bullying is breaking down alliances, undermining intelligence, economic, military and diplomatic cooperation. Trade, travel, tourism and foreign investment will inevitably suffer. Business leaders .. http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/01/news/ceos-respond-trump-paris-agreement/index.html .. know this, which is why Trump’s climate move brought bitter protests from top U.S. corporations.
Trump is projecting retreat, which isolates America. Perhaps the most devastating response came from Macron .. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-france-idUSKBN18S6H3 , who told Trump on Thursday in a perfunctory phone call that the Paris accord is not renegotiable, and that France — and, likely, the world — will no longer work with the United States on climate change.
America, under Trump, has lost its seat at the table. Yes, this is the point at which America gets demeaned.
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