It has to be a smokescreen. Let's call it the Parisian Smokescreen.
There's zero justification for pulling the US out of the 2015 Paris Accord, putting this country in the same pitiful league as Danny Ortega's Nicaragua and Bashar al-Assad's Syria—though I'm willing to give Assad a pass because he has many other things on his mind.
While George W. Bush coined the term Axis of Evil to lump North Korea, Iran and Iraq together, Donald Trump has responded with his own Axis of Polluters. Or perhaps the more Trumpian, "Axis of Losers."
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That axis denies both overwhelming scientific evidence that supports the threats posed from global warming and robust public support in favor of the Paris Accord.
In the Rose Garden yesterday, the president was not at his best. Trump unleashed whoppers such as the Paris Accord giving a free pass to China to build coal plants while banning the US from following suit--as if the construction of coal plants was a good idea.
The Washington Post "Fact Checker" today pointed out that the Paris agreement is non-binding and has no provision to stop any country from building coal plants.
The reality: China has killed plans to build more than 100 coal plants and is mounting a push into energy renewables.
That's an opportunity that our businessman hooked-on-coal president overlooks, ignores or doesn't know about, yielding the way for China to take the lead in the projected $6T by 2030 renewable fuels market.
Trump hasn't just turned the tables; he has overturned them. China and India, which were recently bashed for pollution, are now leading advocates for a low-carbon future. Meanwhile, the White House waxes nostalgic about the opportunities presented by the coal and oil fuels of yesteryears.
The capper: China, a frequent target of Trump, enjoyed a sweet measure of revenge at the expense of our carbon-loving president as its Xinhua news agency gleefully called his global warming pact exit "reckless and foolish."
Is Trump crazy to kill the Paris Accord, or is he crazy like a fox? The president received wall-to-wall largely negative news coverage for walking away from the Paris Accord.
That avalanche of news did serve a purpose. It put the Russian meddling into our election saga and former FBI director James Comey's upcoming testimony on the backburner. The New York Times though ran a "Maybe Private Russian Hackers Meddled in Election, Putin Says" story on today's cover.
Trump stunned America yesterday. Count on more shockers as probes into the 2016 presidential election go into high gear.
There will soon come a time when the president runs out of smokescreens.
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