Over the years President Donald Trump has made no secret that he is pro-asbestos
and rejects the undeniable scientific proof that asbestos poses a significant
threat public health. He has expressed his disregard for the hazards of
asbestos in his 1997 book,
The Art of the Comeback, his 2005 comments to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee, and, of course, in his tweets.
Why the impassioned interest? In Trump’s case, it stems from the
cost incurred over the years to remove asbestos from old buildings he’s
redeveloped. Trump’s placing his own economic interests ahead of
public health has angered scores of environmental and asbestos cancer
advocates. But it appears that his position has found favor with at least
one group.
As Reported by the
Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Russian asbestos mining company has put Trump’s face on
the side of their packaging with the words “APPROVED BY DONALD TRUMP,
45th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
On June 24, the Russian asbestos company Uralasbest posted on its Facebook page,
“Donald is on our side! … He supported the head of the United
States Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt, who stated that his
office would no longer deal with negative effects potentially derived
from products containing asbestos. Donald Trump supported a specialist
and called asbestos “100% safe after application."
One of the world’s biggest producers of asbestos, Uralasbest’s
asbestos mine in the Ural Mountains city of Asbest is the largest in the
world. In 2010 Vladimir Putin met with the head of the Uralasbest workers
union and “promised to support Russian producers of chrysotile,
especially in situations where we find ourselves under political pressure
at the international level.”
“Vladimir Putin and Russia’s asbestos industry stand to prosper
mightily as a result of the Trump Administration’s failure to ban
asbestos in the U.S.,” said EWG President Ken Cook. “Helping
Putin and Russian oligarchs amass fortunes by selling a product that kills
thousands each year should never be the role of a U.S. president or the
EPA, but this is the Trump administration. Russia’s interests are
Trump’s interests, and any clear-eyed American knows it.”
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