French President Macron Singles Out Trump's America & Promises No New Deals Will Be Made for 'Powers That Do Not Respect' the Paris Climate Accord

French President Emmanuel Macron suggested that he would not sign any new trade deals with the United States because of it's pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, or any nations that remain on the outside of the international agreement. That may soon include Brazil, as a far right wing politician in the mold of Trump seems to have a strong chance of being elected president there, and he has expressed a desire to pull Brazil out of the accord, as well. 

Macron also took exception to Trump's "America First" approach, suggesting that what the world needs instead is more coopoeration and working together to resolve some of the biggest challenges and concerns, and not more isolationism and selfish pursuits by individual nations.

“As I was saying a year ago, today we should not aggravate regional tensions but rather through dialogue and multilateralism pursue a broader agenda that allows us to address all the concerns caused by Iranian policies," Macron told the United Nation.

He continued:

“What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilized it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No! We know that Iran was on a nuclear military path but what stopped it? The 2015 Vienna accord.” 

This is encouraging news, although I remain a bit skeptical as to how widely it will be implemented by other countries and, frankly, even by France, regardless of Macron's words. 

Still, it would be nice if this kind of thing were taken more seriously. Being a child of the eighties (I was literally officially a child throughout that decade, but still followed some of the news, especially in the latter part of the decade), I very much remember following the whole anti-apartheid movement, which of course included the movement to divest and impose an international economic boycott against South Africa so long as the racial laws of apartheid remained in place. There is some question as to how effective this actually was, with some suggesting that it worked, while others saying that it really never amounted to more than a relatively minor nuisance for South Africa, and that it might even have hurt the very people it was trying to help more than the privileged whites. 

However, the consensus back then, and still now, is that the economic embargo did put serious pressure on the white minority apartheid government, as well as white residents of South Africa during those days, to change. And indeed, the same might be said for Americans, where a relatively small minority of the population somehow manage to control the political reins of power, and keep electing so-called leaders who make the nation stand out for all of the wrong reasons. From illegal and immoral invasions of sovereign nations - particularly of Iraq - to the dubious distinction that the nation has for being the only industrialized nation that fails to provide it's citizens affordable, universal healthcare, or one of the very few nations without paid maternity leave, or the nation that far and away has more people behind bars than any other, and finally, of course, to being the only nation dragging it's feet on action regarding climate change, to the point that it now officially rejected the Paris Accords on the premise of skepticism behind the science, the United States indeed stands alone in the world on many political issues.

In recent years, particularly since the election of Donald Trump to the White House, the United States has faced increasing isolation for many of these positions. Trump seems to literally stand not only on the wrong side of these issues, but aggressively so, literally resorting to mocking and name-calling towards political opponents. Even though many of these issues far predate him, the fact of the matter is that he is the most extreme symbol of everything that has gone wrong, and continues to go wrong, in this country. He and his supporters proudly display a militant stupidity and betray every bit of the arrogance that much of the rest of the world has long suspected of Americans. Quite literally, Trump is the face of the "ugly American," and we Americans collectively elected this man to be our leader, the nation's face and voice, at least for four years, popular vote or not popular vote. And the way that things are going now with the pathetic Democrats, it is hardly a stretch to imagine this pathetic man winning another four years in 2020. 

The real tragedy of it is that while Trump keeps telling his supporters, and Americans in general, that the whole world is laughing at us, the world is actually recoiling in horror at what is going on in this country. The transparent manipulation of Americans is really the product of a very specific blindness, or at least a blind spot, unique to Americans.

What is this blind spot? It is any notion that anything that happens in the rest of the world should matter to Americans. When universal, affordable healthcare is mentioned, far too many Americans will irrationally and unashamedly say, with a straight face, that this is how concentration camps and death camps even begin, that this is fascism. When there is another mass shooting in this country that loves guns a bit too much, there are people who not only do not express sadness or their sympathy towards the victims and their families, but instead figuratively put their arms around their guns and warn about how government coming for people's guns will inevitably lead to concentration camps and death camps. The fact that plenty of other western democracies not only have an affordable, universal healthcare system, but have tighter, common sense gun laws on their books, and have not themselves turned into totalitarian dictatorships, betrays the clear error in the way of thinking that far too many Americans have bought into. Yet, these same Americans basically do not seem to care, because that is somewhere else, some other countries, and far too many Americans presume that literally every other country is nowhere near as free as the United States is, even though the truth is starting to be exactly the opposite.

Again, not only does the United States stand alone in rejecting universal, affordable healthcare, and in rejecting any reasonable measures for common sense gun legislation, and continue to reject paid maternity leave, continue to reject science (especially science regarding climate change), and continue to have far and away the most prisoners of any nation in the world (even though we proudly proclaim ourselves to be the "land of the free"), and we reject the banning of landmines and increasingly, under both Bush Jr. and especially now under Trump, we are rejecting any international cooperation, and mocking the world community for their powerlessness, which we Americans of course help to contribute to. I hardly think that Trump's stated reasons for dropping his country out of the United Nations Human Rights Council. On down the line, the United States now finds itself on the wrong side of virtually every issue, and unable to actually defend these indefensible positions, Trump and his political allies instead take to mocking any concerns regarding these, or downright ignoring them or, increasingly, turning to half-baked conspiracy theories that the entire world is out to get US.

The United States under Trump is increasingly turning to the incessant lies and conspiracy theories that relentlessly come from the President and his supporters these days. Which returns us to the problem of environmental laws being made weaker at a time when we should be making them far stronger. Remember, whether or not he denies it, Trump once tweeted that climate change was a conspiracy invented by the Chinese to weaken the United States, particularly the American economy. Under this president, facts simply do not seem to matter. Our living standards have been surpassed by several other countries, and continue to be on the decline, and still we Americans collectively dig ourselves into the trenches that we are imposing for ourselves in this apparent ideological war against the entire rest of the world. More and more, we are desperately trying to find allies, even temporary allies, as we find ourselves increasingly under isolation for our political beliefs and values. Perhaps what should be most amazing to Americans, who are used to considering and calling themselves the "leaders of the free world" is that the rest of the world is moving on, with or without the United States. That is true with the human rights council, which the United States, under Trump, withdrew from. That is also true with the Iran nuclear deal, which the United States, under Trump, withdrew from. That is true of global trade, which the United States, under Trump, has tried to deliberately sabotage by starting trade wars with allies and rivals alike.

The same can be said for the development of alternative energy sources. Trump has tried to sabotage any and all efforts to make the United States, and indeed, the planet, a bit cleaner and healthier, most notably by pulling the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. Considering himself the master negotiator in history, he figured that the world would come running and kneel at his feet, so much did they need the United States. Macron, and indeed other European leaders, as well as leaders in China and India and much of the rest of the world, have condemned Trump's withdrawal. And here, as Macron emphatically stated before the United Nations, the world must move on without the United States again. Indeed, even before Macron really entered the scene, other European leaders were doing the same. German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly stated that Europe could not rely on two traditional allies, Great Britain (post Brexit), and the United States, particularly after Trump's rise to the presidency.

Indeed, American "leaders" have long mocked climate change. Environmentalists were known as wackos, as crazy, essentially, when they first warned about the dangers of global warming/climate change, during the days of Reagan and Bush, and even during the Clinton years. Then, just like scientists predicted, more storms appeared, and more serious ones at that, and the laughed abruptly died away, for the most part. Only then, reluctantly, did these detractors finally begin to admit that maybe there indeed was something to this climate change thing. But still, the mockery and inability to take it seriously did not simply go away. Senator Jim Inhofe, the  chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works from 2003 to 2007, and again from 2015 until 2017, kept vigorously denying the existence of climate change, even going so far as to bring in a snowball from outside as proof that the world could not be warming, since it was cold enough to bring a snowball into Congressional chambers from right outside, betraying his complete lack of awareness, not to mention his complete indifference, to what scientists were saying climate change actually is and would do. It is not because it is a cold and snowy day in Washington that the climate is not changing as they have been projecting. Then, there is Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who mocked concern about climate change by derisively dismissing what he perceived as Obama's promise to try and slow the rise of the oceans. And who could forget former Speaker of the House John Boehner's hilarious little jab towards environmentalists on Earth Day in 2015, as he stuffed his face on jelly beans, and said he enjoyed the green ones the best? Remember when Florida Governor Rick Scott forced government employees to avoid any discussion on climate change, essentially threatening them with serious consequences, even while the waters in some parts of Florida, including but not limited to Miami, were routinely rising to street level? And who could forget when a number of members of Congress essentially dodged questions and concerns regarding climate change by uniformly stating that they were not scientists? If there should have been a point when American recognized that these are not authorities on this issue, that was it, because they were basically admitting their lack of qualifications to hold their own on this issue, which I hesitate to call a debate, specifically because they were not scientists, and thus not qualified to hold any kind of debate on it scientifically. Yet, the "debate" continued, and the American people keep electing these unqualified and irresponsible "leaders" back into office. Then, of course, they elected the ultimate self-appointed expert, the narcissist of mythological scales, Donald Trump, into the highest office in the land. He claimed to know enough about science that he explained that hair spray could not possibly damage the environment. Because, you know, who uses more hairspray than him, to provide the illusion of a full head of hair? He also professed the belief that climate change was a hoax designed to hurt the United States economically, and that the terms of the Paris Climate Accord were unfair and specifically designed to hurt the United States, going as far as to suggest that the rest of the world was laughing at the U.S. for having accepted them in the first place.

Thankfully, however, the rest of the world is going ahead, with or without the United States. American participation was warmly received when the U.S., under President Obama, accepted and signed the terms of the Paris Climate Accord. And it did not change it's ways once the U.S., now under President Trump, withdrew their responsibilities towards the Paris Climate Accord. Nor should they change their ways, either. This is too important, and it is no laughing matter, regardless of how irresponsible and transparently greedy American politicians want to look at it. Japan has developed cleaner and more efficient trains, which have been adapted by the Chinese, as well. China has also invested heavily in exploring cleaner energy development, which would seem to contradict Trump's claims that it invented climate change in order to hurt the American economy, specifically. Germany has been hailed for it's efforts - quite costly efforts at that - to become "the world's first major renewable energy economy". Several Scandinavian nations have taken the threat seriously as well, and have developed very interesting, and apparently successful, ways in developing clean energy and keeping emissions down. Indeed, bioenergy, geothermal, thermodynamic, wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources are greatly growing in the percentage of energy that they provide all across Europe. New Zealand also has been switching to these cleaner sources for their energy needs. Other nations that have come to rely heavily on renewable energy sources include, but are not limited to, Brazil, Costa Rica, Nicaragua,  Uruguay. Even some of the nations that Trump dismisses as "shithole nations," including the two Central American nations listed above, as well as Morocco and Kenya, have taken serious steps to develop renewable energy resources. Even tiny Iceland, in many respects, leads the mighty United States - supposedly still the richest and most powerful country in the world - in alternative energy production, as it already now, in 2018, uses 100 percent renewable resources for it's energy purposes. That is not to say that alternative energy development does not exist in the United States, because of course it does. But not only can we not credit the Trump administration for this, but we need to understand that Trump and his staff have made every effort to hinder the development of these alternative energy sources, much like Reagan did before him, when one of the very first things that he did once he took over in the White House was take down the solar panels that his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, had put up.

These are some examples - quite a few of them, in fact - where other nations have produced incredibly technology that is far cleaner, and frankly, better, than previously existing technology. Coal mining, for example, is not going to have a resurgence, regardless of what Trump thinks or says, simply because the entire world outside of the United States understands that there are better, and far cleaner, solutions. The rest of the world also takes seriously the warnings by scientists that the time for serious action is now, that we cannot afford to wait. Literally, every country in the world sacrificed something to get more stringent environmental laws and policies, in an effort to at least begin to address this impending crisis. By contrast, here in America, we have a habit of electing prominent leaders who literally taunt those who listen to these concerns and feel that urgent action is required. George H. W. Bush promised to be the "environmental president," but he kept us out of the Rio Climate Accord. Under Clinton, with many expecting great things for environmental protection given the noted activism of Vice-President Al Gore, the Kyoto Protocol was not ratified, and most of the most impressive, sweeping laws designed to protect the environment were passed in the last three days of an administration that was in power for eight years, knowing full well that the next administration would quickly get rid of those laws (and look like the bad guys in so doing, because it was all politics). George W. Bush rolled back the Clean Air Act, allowing more pollution. President Barack Obama did virtually nothing towards environmental protection through his first term in office, and only went so far anyway during his second term, even though he had emphasized that this would be the top priority. And Donald Trump? Well, he outright scowls towards any environmental concerns. Like Florida Governor Rick Scott, he literally banned any mention of climate change among government agencies, and quickly made polluting American waterways easier for corporations to get away with. He made offshore drilling not only easier, but outright mandatory, whether states want it or not. He opened up land previously protected as parts of national parks for private economic exploitation. And, of course, he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

So, with the United States going in exactly the opposite direction that it should be, and mocking the world along the way as it does so, we should then remember that other countries not only should proceed without the United States, but also should guard against the United States, with irresponsible and arrogant leaders like Trump, throwing a monkey wrench into international efforts to work together to resolve a serious crisis that effects the entire world. This is especially shameful since the United States, through the course of many decades, still likely ranks as the biggest contributor to those greenhouse gases that have indeed had such a detrimental impact on the global climate. And thus, these other nations should begin to apply more pressure to bear upon Americans, and stand firmly and united at every single attempt that the United States makes to make itself always the exception to the rules that everyone else plays by. We Americans have been wrong before, but never have we had such a loudmouth, obnoxious jackass in charge taking such pride in being dead wrong. Macron might not be the perfect, or the ideal, French president, and indeed, some things that he has done since taking over are questionable. The same can be said for his predecessor, François Hollande, and for his successor,  Nicolas Sarkozy. But at least Macron is continuing in a tradition of French presidents - regardless of whether they are considered conservative or liberal - nevertheless unyielding in their efforts to get their American counterparts to take climate change seriously, and to do their part. Indeed, that spirit of trying to force the United States to take this seriously, and in simply ignoring them when they refuse, is spreading, as more and more leaders around the world simply condemn Trump and his actions, and then move on without any more apparent expectations of American involvement or participation. Just making sure that the U.S. does not succeed in being an absolute hindrance to those efforts, as Trump apparently wishes to be.

Good for them! And even though I am an American, I hope to see more of this! 

Macron rejects trade deals with countries outside Paris climate accord The French president is calling on other countries to join him in refusing to sign new deals with 'powers that do not respect' the Paris Accord  Chris Riotta, 25 September 2018:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/macron-paris-climate-accord-agreement-trade-deal-us-trump-un-nicaragua-a8554916.html


Macron calls out Trump to UN: ‘France will no longer trade with countries that don’t respect the Paris Climate accord’Sky Palma BySky on September 25, 2018:


http://deadstate.org/macron-calls-out-trump-to-un-france-will-no-longer-trade-with-countries-that-dont-respect-the-paris-climate-accord/?fbclid=IwAR0Wu3gHwekMIzEGpmEtZO8TO3QiYpt_Lka235oRhXZBByQ34guIWPZXxE0