Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday that President Trump is not “walking away” from climate change in the wake of his decision to leave the Paris Agreement and believes the issue “is still important.”
“He’s not walking away from it,” Tillerson said during a news conference in Sydney, Australia, according to the Associated Press. “He’s simply walking away from what he felt was an agreement that did not serve the American people well.”
Trump announced his decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement last week. Though the decision was praised by Republicans, the move was criticized by some of the country’s longstanding allies.
Tillerson, speaking alongside Secretary of Defense James Mattis in their first joint appearance abroad, reiterated that Trump is still interested in pursuing a “new construct of an agreement.”
During a speech in the Rose Garden announcing his decision to leave the Paris climate agreement last week, Trump said he would be open to renegotiating the accord or striking a new deal.
“I’m willing to immediately work with Democratic leaders to either negotiate our way back into Paris, under the terms that are fair to the United States and its workers, or to negotiate a new deal that protects our country and its taxpayers,” he said.
