Climate-pact decision near, vows Trump

Heading home, he leaves allies hazy on exit position

President Donald Trump shakes hands Saturday as he arrives to speak to U.S. troops and their families at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy.
President Donald Trump shakes hands Saturday as he arrives to speak to U.S. troops and their families at Naval Air Station Sigonella in Italy.

NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Sicily -- President Donald Trump, closing out the meetings at the Group of Seven summit, on Saturday promised an imminent decision on the Paris climate accord.

photo

AP/JONATHAN ERNST

President Donald Trump, flanked by Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi (left) and Nigerian President Mahamadou Issoufou, gestures Saturday during an expanded session of the Group of Seven summit in Taormina, Italy.

Trump tweeted earlier in the day that he would make a final decision this week on whether to withdraw the United States from the 195-nation climate pact. European leaders he met with at the G-7 summit in Sicily have been pressuring Trump to stay in the accord, arguing that America's leadership on climate is crucial.

Trump ended his nine-day trip abroad with a speech to U.S. troops in Sicily, where he recounted his visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium and Italy and his work to counter terrorism. The president said recent terrorist attacks in Manchester, England, and Egypt underscored the need for the U.S. to "defeat terrorism and protect civilization."

"Terrorism is a threat, bad threat to all of humanity," Trump said, standing in front of a large American flag at Naval Air Station Sigonella. "And together we will overcome this threat. We will win."

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The White House had hoped to use Trump's five-stop trip as a moment to reset as contention at home concerning his campaign's and administration's ties with Russia plays out. The president was warmly received on his opening stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, though he came under more pressure in Europe, particularly over the Paris accord.

Trump was cajoled for three days -- first in Brussels at meetings of NATO and the European Union, then in Sicily for G-7 -- but left Italy without making clear where he stands.

As the G-7 summit drew to a close Saturday, the six other members -- Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan -- renewed their commitment to the accord. The summit's communique noted that the Trump administration would take more time to consider whether it will remain committed to the 2015 Paris deal to rein in greenhouse-gas emissions.

Backing out of the climate accord had been a central plank of Trump's campaign, and aides have been exploring whether they can adjust the framework of the deal even if they don't opt out entirely.

Last week, 22 Republican senators, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., sent a letter to Trump urging him to exit the Paris accord. But members of his administration are deadlocked on the issue.

Environmental chief Scott Pruitt and top strategist Steve Bannon are pushing for a pullout. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, White House adviser Jared Kushner and Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter, have urged the president to stay in the deal.

Other G-7 nations leaned heavily on Trump to stay in the climate deal, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying "we put forward very many arguments."

"There was a lot of give-and-take between the different countries in the room," said Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council.

But he insisted that the other countries understood Trump's refusal to decide now, even if they did not support that position.

"The president's only been in office for a certain period of time, and they respect that," Cohn said. He added: "We're all allies. We're all trying to get to the right place and be respectful of each other."

disappointment, dismay

While Trump's decision was not a surprise, the reaction was swift and critical.

"President Trump's continued waffling on whether to stay in or withdraw from the Paris Agreement made it impossible to reach consensus at the [G-7] summit on the need for ambitious climate action. But he stands in stark isolation," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The leaders of Germany and France also expressed disappointment.

"The whole discussion about climate was very difficult, not to say unsatisfactory," Merkel said. "There's a situation where it's six -- if you count the European Union, seven -- against one."

President Emmanuel Macron of France said he had told Trump that it was "indispensable for the reputation of the United States and for the Americans themselves that the Americans remain committed" to the climate agreement.

The exit of the United States, the world's second-largest greenhouse-gas emitter after China, would not immediately dissolve the pact, which was negotiated under President Barack Obama and legally ratified last year. But it would weaken the strength of the deal and pave the way for other countries to withdraw from it.

The Paris Agreement is broader than any previous climate accord. It calls for reducing pollution in hopes of limiting global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above temperatures at the outset of the industrial revolution.

Hundreds of corporations and investors have endorsed the pact, including major oil producers Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp., which was previously led by Tillerson.

Some climate diplomats said the rest of the world was growing weary of America's back-and-forth on climate-change policy. In 1997, the United States joined the world's first climate treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, but later withdrew during the administration of President George W. Bush.

"At some juncture, other countries are going to get sick of us joining in, pulling out, joining in and pulling out and say, 'Are we really going to work with the U.S. on this anymore?'" said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton.

successes touted

Regarding Trump's trip, the administration touted the president's efforts to birth a new coalition to fight terrorism and his admonishment of partners in NATO to pay their fair share.

In his Saturday speech to the soldiers, Trump reiterated his concerns about a vow by NATO countries to move toward spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Only five of NATO's 28 members meet the target: Britain, Estonia, debt-laden Greece, Poland and the United States, which spends more on defense than all the other allies combined.

"The U.S. is currently paying much more than any other nation, and that is not fair to the United States or the United States taxpayer. So we're working on it and I will tell you, a big difference over the last year, money is actually starting to pour into NATO from countries that would not have been doing what they're doing now had I not been elected, I can tell you that. Money is starting to pour in," Trump said, echoing a tweet earlier Saturday on the subject.

There is no evidence that money has begun to "pour in," and countries do not pay the U.S. or NATO directly. But Germany, for instance, has been increasing its defense spending with the goal of reaching the 2 percent target by 2024.

Trump also railed against Germany while abroad, denouncing on Friday the country's trade surplus with the U.S. and promising to end it.

"The Germans are bad, very bad," Trump was quoted as saying during a meeting in Brussels with European Union leaders. Cohn later confirmed the statement, saying it referred only to Germany's trade practices, not to its people or the country.

Trump has criticized Germany's trade practices before, even in person to Merkel, and suggested that he wanted to negotiate directly with German leaders to fix America's unbalanced trade with Europe's largest economy.

But as part of the European Union, Germany does not negotiate trade agreements. That authority rests with the EU.

Information for this article was contributed by Jonathan Lemire, Julie Pace, David McHugh and Ken Thomas of The Associated Press; by Michael D. Shear, Mark Landler, Coral Davenport, Eric Schmitt, Alissa Rubin and Alison Smale of The New York Times; and by Joe Ryan, Josh Wingrove and Jennifer A. Dlouhy of The Washington Post.

A Section on 05/28/2017

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