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 has signed an executive order withdrawing the United States again from the Paris climate accord.
Trump signed the
order, titled “Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements,” on Jan. 20, after he was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States.
The order mandates the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations to notify the U.N. secretary-general of the withdrawal.
“The United States will consider its withdrawal from the Agreement and any attendant obligations to be effective immediately upon this provision of notification,” the order reads.
Trump’s order also terminates all U.S. financial commitments under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the U.S. International Climate Finance Plan. He instructed federal agencies to revoke policies supporting this plan and to prioritize economic efficiency and American prosperity in future international energy agreements.
“In recent years, the United States has purported to join international agreements and initiatives that do not reflect our country’s values or our contributions to the pursuit of economic and environmental objectives,” the order states. “Moreover, these agreements steer American taxpayer dollars to countries that do not require, or merit, financial assistance in the interests of the American people.”
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.
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 said 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 said 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.
The White House announcement drew criticism from environmental groups and others.
“It simply makes no sense for the United States to voluntarily give up political influence and pass up opportunities to shape the exploding green energy market,” Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of the sustainable development non-profit World Resources Institute, said in a
statement. “Sitting on the sidelines also means the United States will have fewer levers to hold other major economies accountable for living up to their commitments.”
Laurence Tubiana, CEO of the European Climate Foundation and a key architect of the Paris Agreement, said that Trump’s decision to withdraw from the climate pact contrasts with “unstoppable” momentum towards phasing out fossil fuels.
“The context today is very different to 2017,” she
told Reuters. “There is unstoppable economic momentum behind the global transition, which the U.S. has gained from and led, but now risks forfeiting.”
In a November 2024
op-ed in the Financial Times, Tubiana addressed Trump’s pledge to exit the Paris climate pact, calling it damaging and predicting that it would “embolden those countries and vested interests still clinging to the fossil fuel era.”
Tubiana said that the climate change movement doesn’t need the United States because of the “critical mass” of supportive countries.
“We have economic logic, a critical mass of countries, and public support on our side,” she wrote. “Let’s stay calm and carry on.”
