The US has one of the most ridiculous foreign treaties ratification systems I know of. It has lead us to shit many times (post WWI ridicule, not being part of International Court of Justice and so on). Essentially — as one of the many archaic and crazy parts of the constitution, Art II- the presidents sign the agreements or treaties, but to be ratified an absurd 2/3s of the senate is needed. Of course that was thought as a prevention of too powerful presidents and to preserve a very federalist form of government. All fine and dandy when you are a small new nation and have no previous treaties or political parties. Fast forward just a handful of years after the constitution and the system was already broken: because what in hell could get 2/3s of approval by the senate???
Now we get to the recently Paris Agreement signed by 100 nations, and with many more as Parties of it including USA and China. Of course here it has not been ratified, and it never ever will be - like the large majority of all the treaties we have signed for decades. Its all a game you see, president signs them, they are never brought to the floor to be ratified and everyone in the senate can ludicrously posture about them at home. If they are brought to the floor for a vote they are very likely defeated. Like when Bob Dole went in person to plead with his own party to pass the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012 and it failed in a 61-38 vote (because black helicopters/Obama/we dont give a fuck about any one, including disabled people, but the deplorables and the corporations).
The thing is when those treaties are not ratified they are basically executive orders and the next president can just go back on them. That doesn’t happen normally because presidents understand that our international standing will crater, and that signing other treaties would be hard after you go back on the ones you already had.
Now comes in super-mega-ultra bestest deal breaker and electoral idiot savant The Donald and says: I’m going to take us of our commitment to the Paris agreement as soon as I can redecorate the oval office with more gold lame. The Paris agreement sets a series of carbon goals and taxes for all countries to reduce carbon out put globally. If the USA goes back on it we will have a very unfair advantage over the rest of signatories and parties, basically all the world.
So here comes former president of France and candidate for the next election, and very likely winner, Nicholas Sarkozy and proposes a solution to deal with The Donald:
“Well, I will demand that Europe put in place a carbon tax at its border, a tax of 1-3 per cent, for all products coming from the United States, if the United States doesn’t apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our companies,” he added.en.rfi.fr/...
That deserves a BOOM or a BANG or any other onomatopoeia you can come up with.
Sarkozy is the leader of the regular right wing party in France and he is going to have to fight hard vs the leader of the far right wing Lepen in the elections. As Trump ascension has invigorated the nationalists in all countries, including his good friend Lepen, one of the only ways to attack them in their game is going to be to put your selves against Trump and Trump’s America.
I can see this tariff idea to all US products extending. Trump in his idiocy called all this on himself when he talked of bulling other countries with tariffs. That XIX century game is gone in the modern global economy, the people in MI and WI and PA that thought Trump was going to undo NAFTA and put tariffs better be ready to export to no one, or worse see all the big US based industries relocate.