Lately, former US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said that
President Joe Biden’s obsession to decarbonize the United States plays into the
hands of adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), making them richer
and more powerful while imposing costs on Americans and making them less safe.
In an
op-ed published on December 05 in the Washington Examiner, Pompeo argued
that the Biden administration’s focus on fighting climate change is
misguided and will hurt US families while empowering the country’s adversaries.
He took aim at the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden
recently described as the biggest, most important climate bill in the history
of our country and which Pompeo said would make life more expensive for
American families.
“The statement was telling, Americans were told its purpose
was to reduce inflation, but in reality, it was a gas lighting Trojan horse,”
Pompeo wrote in the op-ed, referring to Biden’s characterization of the
Inflation Reduction Act, which the president made at a recent climate summit in
Egypt.
Biden’s description of the measure perfectly encapsulated
how climate change and green energy have skewed this administration’s
priorities, Pompeo wrote.
When selling the Inflation Reduction Act to the American
people, the Biden administration said it was meant to reduce inflation, which
has been running close to a 40-year high.
Pompeo argued
that in reality, it was a gas lighting Trojan horse meant to conceal the Biden
administration’s real priority, which Pompeo said is to fight fossil fuels.
Pompeo also criticized US foreign policy under Biden as
being so highly focused on fighting climate change that it diverts attention
from the real threats posed by America’s adversaries on the world stage.
“Biden’s
obsession to decarbonize America is guaranteed to enrich and empower the
Chinese Communist Party,” he argued.
“A
sizable portion of the law’s handout will go toward solar energy despite this
administration being well aware that Chinese manufacturers dominate 80% of the
market for solar panels and that many of them have ties to forced labor in
Xinjiang,” he noted as an example.
When Pompeo served as Secretary of State under then
President Donald Trump’s administration, he issued a determination that the CCP
was guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity over its mistreatment of
Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Chinese officials have denied such allegations.
Congress
later passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), which banned the
import of goods from Xinjiang and other regions with links to forced labor.
Even
though Biden signed the UFLPA into law, Pompeo alleged that the current administration
has displayed mixed feelings about enforcing the measure in its bid to win
concessions from China on climate change.
John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate,
faced allegations of lobbying against the UFLPA, which his spokesperson denied.
“This is false. Secretary Kerry has a thirty-seven-year
record as a Senator and Secretary of State standing up for human rights and
defending democracy,” a State Department spokesperson told the Washington
Free Beacon.
“As Secretary Kerry has said from the start, the United
States and China have mutual interests in solving the climate crisis while
there’s still time, even when we fundamentally disagree on other critical
issues,” the spokesperson added.
Kerry also sidestepped a question during last year’s COP26
Climate Change Conference, saying the issue was not my lane.
He was responding to a question from a reporter if he had
mentioned human rights issues, including forced labor in Xinjiang, in meetings
with Chinese officials.
“Well, we’re honest. We’re honest about the differences, and
we certainly know what they are and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my
lane here,” Kerry said in November 2021. “My job is to be the climate guy, and
stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”
Pompeo
recalled the controversy over Kerry’s remarks and called the climate czar’s
comparison of the Biden administration’s climate diplomacy with China to former
President Ronald Reagan’s arms reduction talks with the Soviet Union as
foolish.
“Reagan was looking to make the world safer, while Biden is
enabling genocide in exchange for making energy less affordable and reliable
for Americans,” Pompeo said.
“And it is ironic, given the Chinese are building coal-fired
power plants at a ridiculous rate and only making the problem worse,” he added.
Pompeo argued that by foolishly prioritizing climate change
in its dealings with the CCP over gross human rights abuses, aggressive actions
against US allies, and the CCP’s espionage activities in America, the Biden
administration has empowered China.
