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After Donald Trump's India's Air Is 'Filthy' Remark, Congress Takes Dig At 'Howdy Modi'

Trump was justifying his decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord during the final presidential debate.
US President Donald Trump during the final presidential debate on October 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
US President Donald Trump during the final presidential debate on October 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville.

In their last presidential debate on Thursday, US President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden clashed over the US response to climate change.

While explaining his decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accord negotiated in 2015, the President mentioned India and its “filthy air”.

“Look at China, how filthy it is. Look at Russia. Look at India. The air is filthy,” Trump said, according to PTI.

“I walked out of the Paris Accord as we had to take out trillions of dollars and we were treated very unfairly,” he said in response to a question on climate change.

Trump has repeatedly blamed India and China for his decision to quit the deal.

At an election rally in North Carolina this month, Trump had said that while the “US has the best environmental numbers, ozone numbers, and so many other numbers”, China, Russia and India are “spewing stuff into the air”.

In 2017, while announcing his decision to leave the accord, the US President had said that countries like China and India are benefiting the most from the Paris Agreement and the agreement on climate change was unfair to the United States as it badly hit its businesses and jobs.

In 2019, he had blamed the two countries for not doing enough on climate change. In an interview to Britain’s ITV channel, he had said that while the US had “some of the cleanest air”, it was other countries that were not doing enough to tackle pollution.

“China, India, Russia, many other nations, they have not very good air, not very good water in the sense of pollution and cleanliness. They don’t do the responsibility,” he was quoted as saying by PTI.

Congress took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s friendship with Trump. Congress’s Kapil Sibal tweeted:

B Srivatsa, national campaign in-charge of the Youth Congress, asked if Modi will respond to Trump’s remarks.

Congress spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill tweeted:

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.