President Donald Trump still plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement unless there are major changes made to the carbon emissions pact, the White House said Saturday.
If the administration were to reverse itself on dropping out of the accord, it would be a stark retreat on the issue for Trump and a complete break from his campaign promise to “cancel” the agreement, possibly signaling also that he’s moving closer to Democrats on some policy matters.
“There has been no change in the United States’ position on the Paris agreement,” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. “As the President has made abundantly clear, the United States is withdrawing unless we can re-enter on terms that are more favorable to our country.”
Earlier, the European climate official had suggested Trump was wavering in his commitment to remove the US from the landmark accord, which was struck in 2015.
The European Union’s commissioner for climate action and energy, Miguel Arias Cañete, told reporters in Montreal that US officials have said that they will “review the terms on which they could be engaged” with the Paris deal, according to spokeswoman Anna-Kaisa Itkonen, who spoke to CNN by phone.
Cañete added that the US “has stated that they will not renegotiate the Paris accord.”
The Agence France-Presse and The Wall Street Journal first reported Cañete’s remarks Saturday.
The secondhand remarks suggested a softening stance on the Paris agreement, which Trump vowed to abandon unless he could strike a more favorable deal. That would likely include greatly lowering the carbon emission reduction targets set by the Obama administration when it signed onto the accord two years ago.
During his June announcement, Trump downplayed the prospects of finding areas of agreement with other participating countries.
“We’re getting out,” he said during Rose Garden remarks. “And we will start to renegotiate and we’ll see if there’s a better deal. If we can, great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”
Since then, Trump has signaled to fellow leaders that he could be open to finding a way to remain a part of the agreement as long as he believes US interests are better protected.
“He told me he was going to try to find a solution in the coming months,” French President Emanuel Macron said after meeting Trump in Paris in July. “We spoke about the details that could allow him to stay in the accord.”
On Monday, climate ministers from about a dozen large-economy nations will meet in New York with Gary Cohn, head of the National Economic Council, where the US position on the Paris agreement is expected to be discussed.
Ministers will look to Cohn for greater clarity on the US position. As Trump weighed a decision on withdrawing from the Paris agreement last Spring, Cohn advocated against a full withdrawal.
