WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would, at the very least, renegotiate the Paris climate agreement if he became president. He could also just consider figuring out "something else."
"I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else," Trump told Reuters in an interview.
The United States and 174 other nations have signed the climate agreement that was reached last December at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change session in Paris. That agreement commits nations to setting their own targets for reducing planet-warming emissions, while outlining a collective target of keeping warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
But Trump called the arrangement "one-sided" and "bad for the United States."
He told Reuters he is "not a big fan" of the agreement "because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere."
Well, sure: Agreements don't work if nations don't adhere to them. But what's the best way to ensure no one adheres to an agreement? Not having one at all.
Trump's argument basically boils down: "I don't trust China."
He has also said he believes that "the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."
The Obama administration has put a lot of effort into working with China on climate change -- even though the two nations disagree sharply on other issues. With China's large population and growing economy, its participation in any climate deal is imperative. But that participation depends on the good-faith efforts of other nations, including the U.S.
As The Huffington Post has previously reported, pulling out of the Paris agreement could damage the U.S.'s international credibility. This may not bother a potential President Trump, but it would certainly annoy leaders who have spent years negotiating this deal.
Trump also doesn't really seem to understand the underlying concept of climate change. "Unless somebody can prove something to me, I believe there’s weather. I believe there's change," he said last year.
"This is simply more proof that Trump’s international antics would isolate the United States around the world and only 'negotiate’ away American leadership," Sierra Club Political Director Khalid Pitts said in a statement. "Meanwhile, we can only wonder how a climate science denier is supposed to renegotiate an international climate agreement."
Editor's note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.