There was one line of President Trump's 30-minute speech announcing his decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord that may stand out when the histories of the Trump presidency are written. "At what point do they start laughing at us as a country?" he said. "We don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us anymore."
The line was typical Trump, delivered off-hand, off-script, but it said a multitude. Its irony appeared to be lost on a president who seems to be increasingly paranoid about his enemies and particularly the enemies within – the media, the US intelligence services, the so-called deep state.
Thursday’s announcement came after days of equivocation and mixed signals from the White House about the president’s final decision on the Paris accord. On Wednesday he was still consulting a range of advisers –a group including his daughter Ivanka, secretary of State Rex Tillerson and economic advisor Gary Cohn who opposed withdrawing, and a contingent including advisor Steve Bannon and environmental protection agency chief Scott Pruitt who favoured pulling out of the agreement reached by 195 countries in 2015.
In the end, the second group won decisively.
Trump’s announcement confirming America’s withdrawal from a landmark global agreement on climate change – delivered ironically under the baking mid-afternoon sun in the White House rose garden – marks a return to the nationalistic, America-first ideology that helped secure his unlikely path to the White House.
Any hopes that the president may have reassessed his ideology of isolationism following his first foreign trip as president dissipated, as he hailed the “reassertion of America’s sovereignty”.
As he spouted untruths about the impact of withdrawing from the climate agreement on American jobs and prosperity, the president returned to campaign mode, in a repetitive speech which promised to put “America first”.
Thursday’s announcement is proof that the 45th US president has fully embraced a new doctrine of American unilateralism.
To that end, it can be seen as a victory for Steve Bannon, the architect of Mr Trump’s America First policy, who has preached an ideology of economic nationalism. As the series of controversies over the Trump team’s links with Russia have intensified over recent weeks, there have been reports of imminent personnel changes within the West Wing.
Since returning from Europe last weekend, Mr Trump appears to have become more and more isolated, taking to twitter to vent his frustration – and in some cases unfinished thoughts – without any apparent input or control from his advisers. The Paris climate accord decision shows that the Bannon doctrine is back in the driving seat – for now – with Trump seeking to reconnect with his core base of economically-disenfranchised supporters as the full force of the law, and a special counsel investigation, prepares to investigate links between Russia and the Trump campaign team.
As America’s traditional allies moved to denounce the move, Mr Trump is also likely to face enormous political opposition. Already some states, who have taken a progressive approach to climate action, have vowed to resist. The governor of California Jerry Brown and mayor of Pittsburgh have pledged to continue their policies, setting Trump on a collision course with many of the United States’s more progressive states.
Some senior Republicans, including Mitt Romney, also opposed withdrawing from the pact though the traditional Republican base are likely to be content with the move.
While technically, the United States will not be permitted to exit the agreement until November 2020 at the earliest – after the next presidential election – Mr Trump confirmed that the United States will stop abiding by its agreed targets immediately.
His promise to reopen the agreement is unlikely to secure scant support from the accord’s co-signatories. Rather it is likely to signal the increasing sidelining of the United States in international decision-making in the years ahead.
