Trump has argued that the pact puts a bigger burden on America to cut emissions while letting other nations continue polluting at higher levels.
President Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, the White House said on Jan. 20, after Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president.
This marks the second time Trump has pulled the nation out of the agreement, which he has repeatedly criticized as “very unfair” to the United States.
The announcement was made in a White House statement on Monday, which came as Trump was sworn in for a second term. Early in his first term, Trump announced he would cancel U.S. participation in the
climate pact, but because of the complex rules of the treaty, the withdrawal didn’t formally take effect until Nov. 4, 2020, a day after that year’s presidential election.
Trump previously argued that the treaty placed a bigger burden on America to cut emissions while letting other nations continue polluting at higher levels.
“The Paris Accord would’ve been a giant transfer of American wealth to foreign nations that are responsible for most of the world’s pollution,” Trump
said in October 2019. “The Paris Accord would’ve been shutting down American producers with excessive regulatory restrictions like you would not believe, while allowing foreign producers to pollute with impunity.”
On his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden
signed an instrument to bring the United States back into the Paris climate deal. About a month later, Biden
signed an acceptance agreement that formally brought the United States back into the pact, pledging to “combat climate change in a way we have not before.”
Biden made climate action a top priority of his administration. This included setting a goal of a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, which in December 2024 was
revised to a reduction of between 61 percent and 66 percent by 2035.
“I’m proud that my administration is carrying out the boldest climate agenda in American history,” Biden said in a
video message.
While on the campaign trail in February 2023, Trump
vowed to pull the United States out of the climate pact again and to reverse many of the Biden administration’s energy policies that Trump said were detrimental to U.S. energy security.
Trump argued that Biden’s policies drove up domestic energy production costs, hurting American families by making inflation worse while benefiting adversaries such as China. Trump noted that the communist regime in Beijing “signs up for every stupid globalist climate deal and then immediately breaks it.”
After he was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2025, the White House issued a statement outlining Trump’s priorities for his second term.
“The President will unleash American energy by ending Biden’s policies of climate extremism, streamlining permitting, and reviewing for rescission all regulations that impose undue burdens on energy production and use, including mining and processing of non-fuel minerals,” the
statement reads.
It is unclear when the Trump administration will notify the United Nations climate body about its intention to withdraw from the Paris climate pact.
