European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker mocked President Donald Trump’s understanding of certain legal aspects of the Paris agreement on climate change.
Trump is expected to withdraw from the Paris accord sometime this week, but Juncker said: “that’s not how it works.”
“The Americans can’t just leave the Climate Protection Agreement,” Juncker said at an event in Berlin, Germany Wednesday. “Mr. Trump believes that because he doesn’t get close enough to the dossiers to fully understand them.”
“It would take three to four years after the agreement came into force in November 2016 to leave the agreement,” Juncker said. “So this notion, ‘I am Trump, I am American, America First and I’m going to get out of it’ – that won’t happen.”
Juncker is referring to a provision in the Paris agreement that allows countries to exit after it’s been in force for at least three years. The Paris agreement went into force in November 2016, so Trump may have to wait until November 2019 to pull out.
“We tried to explain that to Mr. Trump in Taormina in clear German sentences,” Juncker said to laughter. “It seems our attempt failed, but the law is the law, and it must be obeyed. Not everything which is law and not everything in international agreements is fake news, and we have to comply with it.”
Juncker is forgetting that Trump has two other paths to withdraw from the Paris accord. Trump can consider it a treaty and send it to the Senate for approval — a process virtually every other Paris signatory went through.
He can also withdraw from the U.N. framework global warming treaty, which is the parent treaty to the Paris accord. Trump could withdraw from this immediately, and the Senate would be required to ratify future joining of the framework treaty.
Trump promised to “cancel” the Paris agreement on the campaign trail, and White House aides have told reporters he is still leaning towards exiting the deal.
The president is expected to announce his decision sometime this week.
But Trump could still change his mind at the last minute. He may opt to remain in the Paris accord with a weaker pledge than the one the Obama administration submitted in 2016.
That route would be unpopular with Republicans and conservative activists who argue staying in Paris poses legal risks to the president’s domestic agenda.
“Exiting the agreement would overturn Obama’s end run around the treaty process, safeguard Americans’ ability to self-govern without foreign influence, dispel the long shadow over our economic and energy future, and expand access to affordable energy around the globe, helping eradicate poverty at home and abroad,” said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who also headed Trump’s EPA transition team.
Read more at Daily Caller
What he meant to say is:
Trump doesn’t know how much money we can steal from the citizens keeping up these climate lies.
More and more from the Euroweenies more of their mindless yammering and blabbering from these pathetic little excuses for what were once strong minded people Europe has developed into a nation of snowflakes
The European Union is like marriage, the benefits pull you into the contract. Living together reveals that you must bear the burdens and faults of your partner(s). Green Energy is a parasitic drag. Merkel loves to take in rabid strays. Juncker is an arrogant mocking prick. Refugees undercut wages. Greece is a sponge.
One day you wake up and realize that sharing burdens does not lighten the load. Ask for a divorce and the lawyers party hearty.
The ignorant ” junker “” is not able to understand that
the so-called accord is a nullity under American law.
He’s trying to cite French, EU, or International Law ?
When his own country and more of the EU are under
Sharia ( so-called ) Law ?
I’m pretty sure that President Trump understands The Paris Climate Accord. Apparently European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker doesn’t have a clue about the US Constitution. Without Senate ratification by a supper majority, the accord is meaningless. That includes the Paris Agreement’s provision for withdrawing.