U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Monday the reason why the Trump administration doesn’t include climate change language in its trade deals is that such terms would prevent them from finishing up agreements.
“We have an obligation to help real working people … there’s no point in being so ambitious we don’t end up with an agreement at all,” Lighthizer said, according to the Oxford Union.
The Trump administration has left the issue out of trade deals, such as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and its “phase one” deal with China, despite demands from liberal groups and Democratic lawmakers that the U.S. use the negotiations to address emissions standards and other policies related to climate change.
When the Senate voted to ratify USMCA in January, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said the lack of environmental language was a major flaw. “This allows oil and gas companies to continue to put profits ahead of our air, water, climate, and health,” he said.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said at the time that USMCA “perpetuates NAFTA’s legacy of helping corporations dump pollution, outsource jobs, and undermine climate action.”
Trade policy “should not be dictated by theories or orthodoxies, it should be ruthlessly pragmatic,” Lighthizer said, the Oxford Union reported.
The Trump administration announced in 2017 that it would pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, a process that takes several years and is set to be completed in 2020. President Trump argued the agreement put European interests ahead of the U.S. “It is time to put Youngstown, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, along with many, many other locations within our great country before Paris, France,” he said.
