President Trump said Saturday that he’ll make a decision next week on whether to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate-change agreement, after resisting some intense lobbying by leaders of other industrialized nations at the G7 summit in Sicily, Italy.
“I will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!” Mr. Trump said on Twitter.
As Mr. Trump wrapped up two days of meetings at the G-7, the U.S. did not join the climate section in an of official dispatch issued by the other members of the group.
The document said that although the leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom and the presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission were reaffirming their commitment to the Paris agreement, the U.S. “is in the process of reviewing its policies on climate change and on the Paris agreement and thus is not in a position to join the consensus on these topics.”
Former President Barack Obama signed the Paris agreement to limit carbon emissions in 2015, but Mr. Trump is weighing a move to pull the U.S. out of the deal. He promised to do so during the campaign last year.
Mr. Trump faced three straight days of pressure from European leaders not to pull the U.S. out of the accord.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the group’s discussions with Mr. Trump Friday on the climate-change deal were “controversial” and “very intensive.”
The president has said he’ll make up his mind about the Paris accord after returning home from the G-7 Summit. White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn said Friday that timetable hasn’t changed.
“The leaders did want to know what his time frame was, and [Mr. Trump] said, look, ’This is something where I want to get to the right decision. I’d rather take my time, I’d rather understand the issues, and I’d rather get to right decision on that,’” Mr. Cohn said.
Mr. Cohn said the president’s views “are evolving.”
“He came here to learn. He came here to get smarter. He came here to hear world leaders’ views,” Mr. Cohn said.
But White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster emphasized that Mr. Trump will ultimately base his decision on “what he thinks is best for the American economy.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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