French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday said it was “extremely aggressive” of President Trump to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, adding that he was “not ready” to renegotiate its terms just to accommodate the U.S.
“When you sign a treaty, you have to respect it,” Macron told CBS on the eve of the Macron’s One Planet Summit initiative set to take place in France on Tuesday.
“It’s extremely aggressive to decide on its own just to leave, and no way to push the others to renegotiate because one decided to leave the floor,” he continued. “I’m sorry to say that it doesn’t fly.”
While Macron was not ready to re-open negotiations between the agreement’s more than 190 signatories, he said he was “ready to welcome [Trump] if he decides to come back.”
WATCH: French President @EmmanuelMacron tells @JeffGlor it was “aggressive” for the U.S. to decide to leave the Paris climate accord https://t.co/Z4wgErVIqN pic.twitter.com/J5pqMg6lAn
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) December 12, 2017
The Paris Agreement was purposely crafted as an international agreement and not as a treaty and has no enforcement mechanism.
Macron admitted Trump’s announcement in June that he intended to pull out of the accord created momentum for Macron to take a leadership role on the issue.
The One Planet Summit, scheduled to fall on the original deal’s two-year anniversary, will bring together leaders from all levels of government and the private sector to discuss how best to mitigate climate change.
Macron also told CBS he relayed his concerns to Trump ahead of Trump’s move to name Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
“I told him, I thought it was a mistake, and that such a unilateral decision is not compliant with our international discussions and our international rules and will not facilitate a peace process,” Macron said.
