Energy

The First Question Reporters Asked Trump And Macron Was About Global Warming

REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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The first question reporters asked during a press conference with President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron Thursday was about the two leaders’ disagreement over the Paris climate accord.

A French reporter asked if Macron had convinced Trump to reverse course on withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris accord. Macron invited Trump to celebrate Bastille Day in Paris this Friday.

Trump said “something could happen” with the Paris agreement, but said the two had only “briefly hit on the Paris accord” in their meeting Thursday. The two talked more about terrorism and the war in Syria, Trump said.

“We have a really good relationship, a good friendship,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Macron was one of Trump’s fiercest critics for planning to withdraw from the Paris accord, but told journalists he respected the U.S. president’s decision to leave the agreement. Though Macron did add their disagreement on global warming is “well known.”

That’s a slightly different tone than Macron took ahead of Trump’s visit. Macron said he “will do everything to convince the cities, the states, American entrepreneurs to follow us” into the Paris agreement.

“Americans will be a part of the Paris agreement, whether the government wants to or not,” Macron said before meeting with Trump.

Trump announced he would withdraw from the Paris agreement in early June, though actually leaving the treaty will happen in 2020. Trump said the Paris accord amounted to a plan to redistribute U.S. wealth to its economic competitors.

Trump’s decisions came after leaving an icy G7 meeting with European leaders in late May. Europeans implored Trump to stick with the Paris accord, which the Obama administration joined without Senate approval in 2016.

Macron was one of Trump’s fiercest critics. His government even set up a “Make Our Planet Great Again” website to attack Trump’s Paris decision.

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