President Donald Trump gave remarks at the “Unleashing American Energy” event. If there are still any lingering questions as to the president’s commitment to dumping the Paris Accord, they can now be laid to rest for good.
In his remarks at an event also attended by both energy executives and trade unionists, the President described the Paris Accord as an unfair deal designed to confiscate and keep locked up the country’s vast energy reserves and “trillions of dollars in wealth” to the full detriment of Americans. He said he wasn’t going to let it happen.
From fake predictions to “near limitless supplies”
Early in his remarks the President pointed out that the predictions of fossil fuels running out made decades ago all turned out to be false:
We now know that this was a big, beautiful myth. It was fake. […] the truth is that we have near limitless supplies in our country.”
Surrendering sovereignty “not gonna happen”
According to the President, the US has today an estimated 100 years worth of natural gas supplies and 250 years of coal. Those figures will likely get adjusted upwards. He says the US now in the driver’s seat in global energy, and added: “We don’t want to let other countries take away our sovereignty and tell us what to do and how to do it. It’s not gonna happen.”
Trump said that it was not enough to be energy independent, but that the aims of his administration is to become an exporter and the dominant player on the globe. He reminds that the vast reserves of energy do not belong to the government, but to the people of the United States of America.
On the Paris Accord, President Trump said the international agreement was “one-sided”, and thus the US had to withdraw, claiming that it really put the country “at a disadvantage”.
Number 1, we weren’t playing on the same field. It kicked in for us and it doesn’t kick in for others. The money that we had to pay was enormous. It was not even close.”
The president then said, however, that he remains open to renegotiate the terms of the Accord. “So, we’ll see what happens.”
No regrets whatsoever
The President then made clear that backing out was the right thing to do.
But I will tell you, we’re very proud of it. And when I go around, there are so many people that say thank you. You saved the sovereignty of our country. You saved our wealth because we would have a hard time getting to this new found wealth, and it’s not gonna happen with our country.”
He then announced “six brand new initiatives to propel America’s energy dominance: 1) revive the long neglected nuclear energy., 2) look at barriers to financing highly efficient overseas power plants, 3) approval of a new pipeline to Mexico, 4 and 5) sale of natural gas in foreign markets, and 6) opening up new areas for drilling.
