Arnold Schwarznegger has condemned Donald Trump over his unprecedented rollback of environmental protections, particularly his move against California’s regulation of automobile emissions.

“It’s wrong,” the Terminator star and two-term governor wrote in an opinion column for the Washington Post that was pointedly headlined: “Trump can’t erase a decade of clean-air progress with a Sharpie.”

That was a reference to the furore over Trump’s display in the Oval Office last week of a hurricane map apparently altered with a Sharpie, or marker pen, to make a forecast for Hurricane Dorian show it potentially hitting Alabama.

“It’s un-American,” Schwarzenegger said. “And it’s an affront to longstanding conservative principles.”

Schwarzenegger said the Trump administration was “hellbent on reversing decades of history and progress”.

“Whether it is [motivated by] political pettiness, shortsightedness or just plain jealousy, I couldn’t tell you,” he said.

Describing his anger at moves against California over automobile emissions, Schwarzenegger said his state had been a leader in establishing clean-air standards since 1967, when his “hero”, Ronald Reagan, was governor.

Schwarzenegger wrote: “We set our standards, and the federal government didn’t just respect our authority, it generally made our rules the standard for the entire nation.”

The same pattern applied to efforts to curb greenhouse gases, he said.

“The Trump administration’s threat to revoke our waiver to clean our air is more extreme,” Schwarzenegger wrote. “And coming from a Republican White House, it’s downright hypocritical.”

The former governor also pointed to a contradiction between the conservative principle of states’ rights and the behaviour of the Trump administration.

“How many times have you heard conservatives beat the drum of states’ rights?” he asked. “But suddenly, when a state wants to pollute less and protect its citizens from deadly pollution, conservatives throw states’ rights straight out the window.”

California’s economic success, he said, was built on long-term planning. In contrast, the administration’s “knee-jerk reactionary policies such as the move to revoke our clean-air waiver create uncertainty”.

“They didn’t ask for the Trump administration’s backward thinking, and they know it won’t help them,” he said of four big car companies that have worked with California on limiting emissions.

He added: “California will fight this decision. And I promise you, we will win.”