Will he, or won't he?
Update: Bloomberg reports that person familiar with the decision have confirmed The White House plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
The withdrawal will take three years and Trump will rework the Paris terms in the meantime.
- TRUMP TO SAY PARIS AGREEMENT "FRONT LOADS COSTS ON AMERICAN PEOPLE" -DOCUMENT
- TRUMP TO SAY ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM PARIS AGREEMENT "IS KEEPING HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE TO PUT AMERICAN WORKERS FIRST"
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As we detailed earlier, following Axios' reported rumors yesterday that President Trump is ready to announce his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, the establishment has begun its mourning and fearmongering of the disaster about to befall the world.
Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Google, Gap, Mars and Tiffany & Co. joined a group of large businesses in publishing an open letter to Trump asking him not to end the United States participation in the global warming agreement...
Axios notes that Trump allies say with no ironclad policy convictions on climate, and buffeted by conflicting campaigns from rival advisers - Trump defaulted toward delivering on a campaign promise that catered to his last refuge, the voters who put him in office.
Ahead of the speech, Axios' Jonathan Swan describes the behind the scenes action...
Want to know how volatile many administration officials consider Trump? As the sun went down on Wednesday, Trump had told confidants, including EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, that he was withdrawing from the Paris deal. A withdrawal speech had been drafted and redrafted. An announcement for the withdrawal had been planned for Thursday (today). A whole team of policy wonks inside the EPA had been told to work up mechanisms for withdrawal.
AND YET, numerous White House officials told me in confidence throughout the day that while they were as sure as could be that Trump would pull the trigger, they wouldn't believe it until they saw it.
[The West Wing buzzed] about the West Coast elites like Elon Musk and Tim Cook, who were making last-ditch pleas to Trump. And movement conservatives vented to me about the liberal influence of Ivanka.
All the while, Trump kept asking people's opinions, and expressing doubt, even after setting the train in full motion towards withdrawal. When this thing is over, a good number of West Wing staff will have acquired some new gray hairs.
Finally, as The DailyMail.com reports, Myron Ebell, the head of Trump's environmental division during the presidential transition, said Thursday morning that 'all signs are good' for a Paris exit and he does not believe 'the president is going to disappoint.'
The White House insider and director of global warming policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute told DailyMail.com, 'I think you can take it to the bank that he's going withdraw.'
A spokesman for the Heartland Institute, Jim Lakely, said the conservative organization's president was headed to Washington for the ceremony at the invitation of the White House.
'I don’t think they’d invite him if the Ivanka/Jared side of the tug-of-war on this issue won the argument,' he concurred.
Pulling out will mean the U.S. joins Russia, Iran, North Korea and a string of Third World countries in not putting the agreement into action. Just two countries are not in the deal at all - one of them war-torn Syria, the other Nicaragua.
The Hill notes that many Republicans on Capitol Hill are likely to support pulling out of the Paris deal - 20 leading Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) asked Trump to do just that last week. Withdrawing from Paris would greatly please conservative groups, which have orchestrated an all-out push in opposition to the pact.
“Without any impact on global temperatures, Paris is the open door for egregious regulation, cronyism, and government spending that would be disastrous for the American economy as it is proving to be for those in Europe,” said Nick Loris, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
"It is time for the U.S. to say ‘au revoir’ to the Paris agreement,” he said.
Trump wants his presidency to be about jobs and his decision to be viewed as an economic win for the United States.
A recent report commissioned by the oil industry-backed American Council for Capital Formation found that the deal would eliminate $3 trillion in GDP and 6.5 million jobs by 2040.
A Heritage Foundation paper last year didn’t go quite as far. It predicted that the agreement would prevent 400,000 jobs and cause a GDP loss of $2.5 trillion.
Yet there are also economic arguments for staying in the pact.
The International Renewable Energy Agency estimated recently that the pact would make the world $19 trillion richer by 2050.
Live Feed (President Trump is due to speak at 3pm ET)...
The big question is... What Will Elon Do?