Trump slams the Paris climate accord at the G20 Summit, saying it was 'designed to kill the American economy'

• President Donald Trump on Sunday slammed the Paris climate accord, telling world leaders at the G20 summit that the pact was detrimental to US citizens.
• "To protect American workers, I withdrew the United States from the unfair and one-sided Paris climate accord, a very unfair act for the United States," he said.
• The US formally left the accord on November 4, but President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to reverse the decision and rejoin the international environmental agreement on his first day in office.

President Donald Trump on Sunday slammed the Paris climate accord, telling world leaders at the G20 summit that the pact was harmful to American citizens.

"To protect American workers, I withdrew the United States from the unfair and one-sided Paris climate accord, a very unfair act for the United States," he said. "The Paris accord was not designed to save the environment. It was designed to kill the American economy. I refuse to surrender millions of American jobs and send trillions of American dollars to the world's worst polluters and environmental offenders, and that's what would have happened."

Trump has been a longtime critic of the environmental pact, which was established in 2015 and the United States joined under then-President Barack Obama in August 2016.

In June 2017, a few months into his presidency, Trump withdrew from the accord, saying that the deal was "draconian," while disagreeing with the standards for carbon emission reductions.

After a complex winding-down process, the US formally left the Paris agreement on November 4.

However, President-elect Joe Biden has already pledged to rejoin the agreement on his first day in office.

In the video that was filmed for the summit in the White House, Trump said that the US "has reduced carbon emissions more than any nation," a claim that the Associated Press said was "not that remarkable."

"With its giant economy, the US has far more raw emissions of climate-damaging carbon dioxide to cut than any other country except China," the Associated Press reported. "A more telling measure of progress in various countries is to look at what percentage of emissions a county has cut. Since 2005, the United States hasn't been even in the top 10 in percentage of greenhouse gas emission reductions."

During the G20 climate session, Chinese President Xi Jinping asked the group to abide by the accord.

"Not long ago, I announced China's initiative to scale up its nationally determined contributions and strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060," Xi said. "China will honor its commitment and see the implementation through."