Climate change under Trump administration: an analysis of domestic politics in foreign policy making

In 2017, President Donald Trump announced U.S. Paris Agreement withdrawal. Trump administration also began to revise and rescind the existing efforts meant to mitigate climate change impacts made by Obama administration. These behaviors are unconventional given the dreadful climate change impacts. Additionally, they went against global trend and public opinion. Several pieces of research analyze the rationales behind this decision. However, they focus on Trump‘s psychological factors especially on how he is a climate change denier. To fill the gap, this research aims to investigate the causes of U.S. Paris Agreement withdrawal and declining contribution toward climate change mitigation by emphasizing on domestic political explanation. Accordingly, this research employs document analysis to study the development and policymaking process of U.S. climate change policy to analyze significant domestic actors involved in policymaking. The research used 3 main concepts; Issue Salience, Elites in Policy Making and Two Level Game to further analyze factors shaping actors‘ decision. This research finds out that values and preferences of domestic actors have influenced the current policy direction as a result of U.S. domestic politics. More specifically, it was Republican modern conservative values shared by significant climate change policymakers during Trump era. Since the Party values individual freedom and economic prosperity, leading them to downgrade climate change concern, question its scientific consensus and oppose environmental regulations. Also the preferences of industrial interest groups, namely fossil fuel and automobile companies, who have sought to reduce burdens and costs on their businesses.