France’s President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday that his country has no interest in taking up the Trump administration’s offer of renegotiating the terms of the Paris climate deal.
Macron told President Donald Trump that France will keep open lines of communication with Washington, D.C., but the country will no longer discuss climate issues with the U.S., a French source told Reuters.
He referred to Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the non-binding climate deal, which seeks to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas levels many scientists believe contribute to manmade global warming.
“The president spoke with President Trump in a five-minute phone call. The exchange was direct,” the source said about the conversation, adding that “nothing [in the deal] was renegotiable.”
“In order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris climate accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris accord or an entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers,” Trump said.
Trump promised to roll back the Paris Agreement during the presidential campaign, but leaders within the White House fought over the issue. The president has spent most of his administration eliminating scores of his predecessor’s climate regulations.
Trump believes that former President Barack Obama poorly negotiated the Paris Agreement and did not include workers in the process. The president told reporters Thursday afternoon that the country will leave the accord and possibly re-enter it if the plan can be renegotiated.
Trump also spoke to Germany’s Angela Merkel, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain’s Theresa May after his climate speech to explain his decision, a senior White House official said.
Merkel said she “regrets” Trump’s decision and will continue to work to “save our Earth,” according to the Associated Press.
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