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A dark moment in American history gets darker with each bit of information that comes out.

Donald Trump's disastrous decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal last week is already, on its face, one of the dumbest decisions a political leader has made in a long time. The reasons to stay in the agreement were countless, while the reasons to pull out were stupid both politically and, you know, factually.

Politically, polls show that seven out of ten Americans support staying in the Paris Agreement. Considering this nation is so divided that I'm pretty sure you'd be hard-pressed to get more than 51 percent of Americans to agree that ice cream is good, that is saying something. But perhaps more staggering are the facts of the situation. Donald Trump decided to leave the Paris Agreement because he thinks it will cost us jobs. Of course, this is all based on the fact that Trump desperately wants his base to think he's bringing back coal jobs. Spoiler: He's not. No one is. They're gone forever, and burning down the world's future just to try (and fail) to convince some people otherwise is not a recipe for success. And parading about in the Rose Garden as though you just accomplished something good (as opposed to terrifying) is embarrassing.

And that's become something of a theme with this administration. Embarrassing decision after humiliating fuck-up after embarrassing decision after et cetera, et cetera. But on this issue, Donald Trump had every opportunity to fix things. He had every chance to not make himself (and by proxy all of us) look stupid. A new report from Der Spiegel claims that Trump's display in a closed-door meeting with world leaders was that of a petulant child who chose recalcitrance and tempter tantrums over listening to anyone.

The newly elected French president, Emmanuel Macron, went first. It makes sense that the Frenchman would defend the international treaty that bears the name of France's capital: The Paris Agreement. "Climate change is real and it affects the poorest countries," Macron said.

Then, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reminded the U.S. president how successful the fight against the ozone hole had been and how it had been possible to convince industry leaders to reduce emissions of the harmful gas.

Finally, it was Merkel's turn. Renewable energies, said the chancellor, present significant economic opportunities. "If the world's largest economic power were to pull out, the field would be left to the Chinese," she warned. Xi Jinping is clever, she added, and would take advantage of the vacuum it created. Even the Saudis were preparing for the post-oil era, she continued, and saving energy is also a worthwhile goal for the economy for many other reasons, not just because of climate change.

So let's look at those arguments. Macron made an appeal to Trump's sense of intellect (obviously a bad idea) and compassion (oh boy...). Trudeau appealed to Trump's sense of history (yikes). Merkel, the savviest of the bunch, went in a different direction. She appealed to Trump's egohis image of himself as a brilliant businessman and his desire to "win" at all costs. "You wouldn't want the Chinese to win, would you, Donald?" Obviously, this was the only path that even had a chance, but in the end, Donald couldn't, just once, do the right thing. Nope. Donald reportedly said that even though staying in the deal was easier, he was going to leave because the agreement was hurting the economy's ability to create jobs.

Interesting. Is that true? Well, tough to say. On one hand, noted dummy Donald Trump says it is, while on the other, actual experts say "the agreement would likely help create about as many jobs in renewable energy as it might cost in polluting industries." So for no reason, Donald Trump didn't listen to our allies and then tried to embarrass them in a weirdly confrontational press event. So not only is the world going to burn to a crisp, but we'll have no friends internationally to commiserate with when it does.

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The rest is here:
Donald Trump's Mishandling of the Paris Climate Agreement Was Even More Humiliating Than We Thought - GQ Magazine