China, EU recommit to Climate Pact with Donald Trump support in doubt

BRUSSELS: At a two-day summit that begins in Brussels on Thursday, China and the European Union will commit to free trade and the Paris climate pact in a sweeping rejection of President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies.

The two sides are preparing a joint draft statement to give additional heft to the EU-China talks, which include Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. Trump is said to be leaning toward pulling the US out of the climate-change agreement after other Group of Seven leaders failed to win him over at a summit in Italy last week. The discord prompted German Chancellor Angela Merkel to suggest the US had become an unreliable partner.

At the Brussels meeting, the two sides will seek to work on a stalled investment deal and China will look to make progress on being recognised as a market economy — a status that makes it more difficult to impose anti-dumping measures to its exports. The draft statement obtained by Bloomberg says the EU and China want climate change and clean energy to “become a main pillar of their bilateral partnership, including in their economic relations”. “The Americans can’t just exit this climate protection treaty,” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.



“I’m opposed to behaving like vassals of the Americans. It’s Europe’s obligation to say: You can’t do that.” The EU and China will call on all parties to uphold the Paris agreement because climate change is a “national security issue and multiplying factor of social and political fragility, and constitutes a root cause for instability,” according to the draft statement.