"The treaty itself would have been a disaster for the United States — Trump made an excellent case explaining why," Ohio Northern University Assistant Professor of History Robert Waters said.
Trump announced on Thursday that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Climate Accords signed in December 2015 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to combat global warming.
As well as forcing domestic energy costs to dramatically rise, the commitments Obama made in the Paris Accords would have badly hurt small US businesses at the expense of huge corporations, Waters noted.
"It was impressive that Trump decided to kill [the accords] because most of his big business friends supported them because smaller business competitors would have been driven out of business by the expense of implementing them. He also had to stand against the establishments of both parties," he said.
By using executive authority to pull out of the treaty, Trump had frustrated his liberal opponents in the US federal judiciary who would have been determined to rule in favor of implementing all the most economically damaging and repressive of Obama’s commitment sunder it, Waters added.
"Trump withdrawing from the Paris climate treaty was huge… If Trump had not repudiated the climate treaty, there is no doubt that a judge would have tried to force him to implement the treaty," Waters said.
Trump also pleased his supporters by carrying out his repeated promise during the 2016 presidential election campaign to pull out of the Paris Accords, Waters observed.
"It was very important that Trump kept this promise and killed US participation in the treaty," he said.
However, Trump had redeemed his credibility with his political base by his withdrawal from the Paris accords, Waters maintained.
"This was a big issue for populist voters and he came through. Combined with his [NATO] speech… Trump has done a good job of showing that he is looking out for the American people's interests and will not be cowed by foreign policy elites and their shibboleths," he said.
Retired Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong expressed skepticism at the scientific theories claiming greenhouse gas emissions were generating global warming and agreed that Trump’s withdrawal from the climate accords would benefit the US economy.
"What are the likely consequences of pulling out of the Paris accords? If you believe in anthropomorphic climate change, catastrophic; if you don't, advantageous," he said.
Armstrong suggested that scientific theories, when found not to be supported by empirical evidence, should be abandoned or modified.
