America will continue to lead the world on environmental protection but would not be dictated by others on this issue, President Donald Trump has said as he justified his decision to withdraw from the landmark Paris climate deal.


"From now on, we will follow a very simple rule: Every day I am president, we are going to make America first, not somebody else, not some other country. We are going to make America first," Trump said.


"America will continue to lead the world on environmental protection. We're going to have clean water, crystal clean. We're going to have clean air. But what we won't do is let other countries take advantage of the United States anymore, and dictate what we are doing and dictate our future," he said in his address at the Faith and Freedom Coalitions Road to Majority Conference.


No federal worker, he stressed, should be censoring sermons or targeting pastors. "As long as I'm president, no one is going to stop you from practicing your faith or from preaching what is in your heart, and from preaching -- and really this is so important, from the bottom of my heart, from preaching from the people that you most want to hear and that you so respect, so we have taken a very, very strong position, and you picked a winner," Trump said.


File pic: A coal miner worker shakes hands with US President Donald Trump as he prepares to sign Resolution 38, which nullifies the ''stream protection rule''. Pic: Reuters