President Joe Biden on Friday followed former president Barack Obama's lead and apologized to other countries for the United States' actions.
"I apologize we ever pulled out of the agreement," Biden told international leaders, referring to the 2016 Paris climate deal. The president made the apology at a global warming conference in Egypt as the United States celebrated Veterans Day.
The United States joined the agreement, intended to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, under the Obama administration. In 2020, though, the Trump administration withdrew from the agreement, with then-secretary of state Mike Pompeo saying the deal creates an "unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers." Critics of the agreement said it does not affect China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, as much as it does the United States.
Biden's apology recalls Obama’s much-criticized 2009 "apology tour," during which he blasted his own country for showing "arrogance" and being "dismissive, even derisive," toward other nations.
Biden made multiple gaffes even before he arrived at the conference, the New York Post reported:
Asked by a reporter whether he was hopeful the Russia-Ukraine war would end soon, the president mixed up "Russia" and "Ukraine," "Colombia" and "Cambodia," and said incorrectly that he was visiting "Cairo" in Egypt rather than Sharm el-Sheikh, about 300 miles away.