Donald
Trump tells Prince Charles US has 'clean climate'
This
article is more than 6 years old
President
blames other countries for environmental crisis, in long talk with prince
Matthew
Weaver and Kate Lyons
Wed 5 Jun
2019 09.02 BST
Prince
Charles spent 75 minutes longer than scheduled trying to convince Donald Trump
of the dangers of global heating, but the president still insisted the US was
“clean” and blamed other nations for the crisis.
Trump
told ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday he had been due to meet the Prince
of Wales for 15 minutes during his state visit, but the discussion went on for
90 minutes – during which the prince did “most of the talking”.
Trump
said: “He is really into climate change and I think that’s great. What he
really wants and what he really feels warmly about is the future. He wants to
make sure future generations have climate that is good climate, as opposed to a
disaster, and I agree.”
But Trump
said he pushed back at the suggestion the US should do more.
He said:
“I did say, ‘Well, the United States right now has among the cleanest climates
there are based on all statistics.’ And it’s even getting better because I
agree with that we want the best water, the cleanest water. It’s crystal clean,
has to be crystal clean clear.”
Trump
added: “China, India, Russia, many other nations, they have not very good air,
not very good water, and the sense of pollution. If you go to certain cities …
you can’t even breathe, and now that air is going up … They don’t do the
responsibility.”
Asked by
Piers Morgan if he accepted the science on climate change, Trump said: “I
believe there’s a change in weather, and I think it changes both ways. Don’t
forget, it used to be called global warming, that wasn’t working, then it was
called climate change. Now it’s actually called extreme weather, because with
extreme weather you can’t miss.”
Morgan
did not ask Trump about his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate
agreement. And Trump swerved a question about whether the Prince of Wales had
persuaded him to move his stance on the climate crisis. “I’ll tell you what
moved me is his passion for future generations,” Trump said.
During
the interview – Trump’s third with Morgan since his inauguration – the
president said he had not called the Duchess of Sussex “nasty” in an interview
with the Sun before his visit. But he added: “What she said was nasty based on
what they told me.”
Trump
also appeared to backtrack on his earlier claim that the NHS was “on the table”
in a post-Brexit trade deal, telling Morgan he did not see the cherished
institution as “part of trade”.
“I don’t
see it being on the table. Somebody asked me a question today and I said
everything’s up for negotiation because everything is, but I don’t see it being
on the table. That’s something I wouldn’t consider part of trade, that’s not
trade,” he said.
On
Tuesday, the president sparked uproar after telling reporters at a press
conference alongside Theresa May that US companies should have market access to
every sector of the British economy as part of any post-Brexit trade deal,
including the NHS.
Trump’s
statement drew immediate condemnation from several Conservative leadership
hopefuls as well as senior Labour politicians. There are widespread concerns in
the UK about US firms promising to provide cost-cutting health services and
wanting to sell food produced to lower environmental and animal welfare
standards, such as chlorine-washed chicken.
In his
interview, Trump also softened his stance towards Jeremy Corbyn after telling
Tuesday’s press conference he had rejected a request to meet the Labour leader,
whom he called a “negative force”.
Trump
said a future meeting with Corbyn was “always possible”. He said: “He wanted to
meet. It was very tough to meet and probably inappropriate to meet, to be
honest with you.” And Trump said the chance of Corbyn winning the next election
was a “long shot”.
Trump
also gave some further views on the Conservative leadership candidates,
repeating that he did not know Michael Gove despite the fact Gove interviewed
Trump for the Times in 2017.
He said:
“I don’t know him. I met him last night at the dinner for the first time. I
thought he was very good. You have a lot of good people running. I was saying
to the Queen last night, the choice of your next prime minister is very
important.”
He went
on to lavish more praise on Boris Johnson, whom he has previously described as
a friend, and Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary, who has reportedly become
close to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
He said
of Johnson: “I do think he’s a good person. I think it’s going to be a very
interesting … But they’re good people. They’re good people, and Jeremy’s very
good. I’ve gotten to know Jeremy.”
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