U.S. decision on climate deal won’t be made on trip: Tillerson

President Donald WASHINGTON Trump hasn’t decided if the U.S. will remain a part of the Paris climate accord, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, as pressure mounts from Pope Francis, European leaders and Democratic lawmakers at home to remain in the historic pact to address global warming.

Trump’s decision won’t be made until after he returns from his first foreign trip, Tillerson told reporters Wednesday on Air Force One on the way from Rome to Brussels.

“The president indicated we’re still thinking about that,” Tillerson said. “He hasn’t made a final decision.”

The delay has created an opening for foreign and religious leaders who are imploring Trump to honour the Paris commitment despite his criticisms of the deal as bad for American workers and his description of climate change as a hoax. That list includes the pope, who gave Trump a copy of his 2015 encyclical on climate change following a half-hour meeting in his private study Wednesday.

Bloomberg reported that Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete and China’s special envoy for climate change Xie Zhenhua met Tuesday in Berlin to discuss climate leadership and how to maintain momentum if the U.S. pulls out of the Paris agreement.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni raised the pact in his meeting with Trump, and newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron is also set to press the issue when he holds his first face-to-face meeting with the U.S. president. At home, Democrats say honouring the pact among about 200 nations is important for U.S. strategic interests.

“This is about U.S. leadership,” Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in Washington. “Our allies know how important U.S. leadership is for there to be acceptable world action.”