Despite having been the nation to pioneer and spearhead the agreement in the first place, America will begin the long removal process to revoke its agreement in the Paris Climate Accord according to President Donald Trump.

The news broke before Trump’s scheduled announcement in the White House Rose Garden when the President informed Congress that he would be withdrawing from the agreement despite earlier indicating that he might remain.

Trump officially announced his withdrawal from the international agreement Thursday afternoon in a press conference. In doing so, Trump is gleefully dismantling President Obama’s climate legacy.

“The united states will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or, really, an entirely new transaction with terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers. So we are getting out, but we will start to negotiate if we can make a deal that’s fair. If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.” 

The President’s decision was a long time coming, though reports earlier this week indicated that he was still undecided about whether to remain or remove. Still, according to many sources close to the president, his mind was made up long ago.

Reportedly, Trump daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner both pushed for Trump to remain in the accord, and tech CEO Elon Musk announced that he would withdraw from the White House’s CEO Council if Trump were to remove the U.S. from the agreement.

All of that effort appeared to be no resistance to Trump’s commitment to uphold a campaign promise. Touting his “America first” stance, Trump used this opportunity to reach out to his base and assure them that he intends to put America before anything else, even if it proves detrimental to U.S. power abroad and, eventually, the complete destruction of humanity.

Meanwhile, Chinese and German leaders met earlier today to discuss their commitment to upholding the agreement made in Paris in 2015. It was clear that if the U.S. won’t keep its promises, the two leading nations would move on, strengthening their ally-ship at the expense of U.S. dominance.

Of course, anyone concerned about the state of climate change and the acceleration of global warming should be sickened to see that the United States is willingly electing to remove itself from humanity’s last best chance at slowing the advancing extinction of our species. Without the U.S.’s cooperation, the Paris Climate Accord will have an even more difficult goal to achieve, and will lose a major power player in enforcing the promises made in the agreement.

Still, some are hopeful that President Trump’s absence in the agreement is a net positive, as the agreement hinges on cooperative, amiable participation. If Trump were to remain but refuse to meet any of the goals, it might dismantle the entire accord altogether.

At least now, the nations who are committed can continue to work together in America’s absence until we can come to our senses and put a man or woman into office who actually cares about, y’know, the survival of the human species.