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President Donald Trump said Saturday he would make a decision on the Paris Agreement on climate change "next week" following months of intense speculation and lobbying on both sides of the issue.

The announcement came as Trump departed this year's G-7 summit in Italy without endorsing the landmark global warming deal which has support from nearly 200 countries, a move that put him in conflict with his counterparts from the world's other leading democracies.

A joint statement from all seven countries acknowledged that the U.S. "is in process of reviewing its policies on climate change" while reaffirming the other nations commitment to addressing global warming. "Expressing understanding for this process, the heads of state and of government of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom, and the presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission reaffirm their strong commitment to swiftly implement the Paris Agreement," the statement says.

Read More: What to Know About the Historic 'Paris Agreement' on Climate Change

Trump's first trip abroad provided him with a sense of the strong European support for the deal and, by proxy, the opinion of nearly every other head of state across the globe. Gary Gohn, Trump's chief economic advisor, said this week that the president was "leaning to understand the European position," when asked about Trump's current position on the deal. "Paris has important meaning to many of the European leaders," said Cohn. "And he wants to clearly hear what the European leaders have to say."

The White House has repeatedly promised a decision on the Paris Agreement only to delay as the issue continued to divide Trump's advisers.

Trump promised on the campaign trail to "cancel" the Paris Agreement arguing that it hurts U.S. energy interests, but actually exiting the deal has proven more complicated than Trump portrayed it on the campaign trail. The issue has divided his closest advisers with a group of hard-liners including Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt and senior adviser Steve Bannon arguing for withdrawal.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, along with Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, have pushed for him to remain in the deal. The agreement also has support from many corporations, including in the coal, oil and gas industries.

Leaders across the globe have insisted repeatedly that they will continue to implement the Paris Agreement if the U.S. withdraws. Indeed, the G-7 statement included a commitment not just to keeping the deal alive but to supporting developing countries in their efforts to address global warming, a key component that had been threatened by U.S. intransigence in the past.

"We are ready to continue to provide the leadership on climate change," Maro efovi, vice president of the European Commission and the chief energy policymaker for the European Union, told TIME earlier this year. "We are are going to clearly pursue our goals in Europe, but we also want to continue our strong role in helping, especially in the developing world."

Read More: World Leaders On Edge as President Trump Weighs Pulling U.S. Out of Paris Climate Deal

But leaders also warned that a U.S. exit would damage the country's global stature. French President Emmanuel Macron told Trump that it is "indispensable for the reputation of the United States and the interest of the Americans themselves that the United States remain committed," according to an Associated Press report .

While the agreement might survive a U.S. departure, the absence of the world's largest economy and second-largest polluter would complicate efforts to fight climate change effectively. Research has repeatedly shown even if current commitments are upheld, the world will fall short of its goal to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2C (3.6F) by 2100.

Even if the U.S. remains in the deal, Trump will likely weaken the commitments set under President Obama to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26% from 2005 levels by 2025.

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Donald Trump Says Decision on Paris Agreement Coming 'Next Week' - TIME

President Donald Trump visited the Western Wall in Jerusalems Old City earlier this week.

WASHINGTON Candidate Donald Trump demanded a total and complete shutdown of Muslim immigration and blamed 9/11 on Saudi Arabia. He labeled the pope disgraceful, tweeted an anti-Semitic image, and called Brussels a hellhole.

But during the first few stops of his nine-day foreign trip, which concludes Saturday, Trump has offered a glimpse of what a more diplomatic version of himself would look like. Now Saudi Arabia is a magnificent country. He donned a yarmulke and prayed at the Western Wall. Trump finds Pope Francis to be terrific.

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The presidents less diplomatic side didnt surface until Brussels where, in short order, he verbally cudgeled NATO allies for not doing their share, chewed out Germany on trade, and appeared to shove aside the prime minister from Montenegro the newest member of the alliance to get to the front row for a group photo.

The public has come to know that version of Trump. The other Trump, with the harshest of his rhetoric sanded down, is newer to the public. But his days overseas revealed that hes capable of avoiding major gaffes and of sticking, for the most part, to the script.

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Trump has modulated some of his more extreme positions, and demonstrated that he can be just as flexible in retreating from campaign promises on foreign policy as he has been on the domestic front.

Investigations are ongoing about the Trump teams relationship with Russia, and President Trump said he would decide about the US stance on climate change.

This raises the question: To learn how to be a president, or least bear himself like one, did Trump have to leave the United States?

When Donald Trump acts like a normal president, I find that soothing, said Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts Universitys Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

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He said that Trumps softer rhetoric may be a natural byproduct of learning more about the world. Every president comes into office saying, 90 percent of my predecessors foreign policy was idiotic, said Drezner. And it turns out that 80 percent of American foreign policy is there for a reason and 20 percent of it should change.

Part of the reason Trump seems to be having more success while abroad is that hes largely avoided the unscripted moments that so often bring trouble.

Weve had a sustained period where he has been very disciplined, observed Heather Conley, a former senior State Department official who is now at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Its a very different approach for the president.

She noted that Trump has not been sending erratic tweets and has mostly avoided the press which is atypical for a US president abroad. But the effect has been curtailing the off-the-cuff comments Trump is known for that have often worked against achievement of his policy goals.

These pictures [of Trump abroad] are just great to watch, Conley said. What were seeing is when you follow a script, and you do what you agreed to do, leaders know what is going to happen and you can have successes.

Saudi Press Agency via AP

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, Saudi King Salman, US First Lady Melania Trump and President Donald Trump, visited a new Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last Sunday.

The images that generated discussion at home were far from the kind that could ruin a trip: a strange image of him clutching a glowing orb along with Saudi leaders, the dismissive nudge to the Montenegrin prime minister, and the footage of his wife seeming to flick his hand away when he sought to hold hers in Israel.

One of his few miscues came in Jerusalem on Monday just moments before a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Trump addressed questions about whether he improperly shared Israeli-gathered secrets with the Russians during a meeting in the Oval Office.

I never mentioned the word or the name Israel, never mentioned during that conversation. Theyre all saying I did, Trump said to reporters. So you have another story wrong. Never mentioned the word Israel.

The comments fueled unflattering responses news reports never said he directly identified Israel but Trump regained his balance. And for much of the trip, Trump has navigated fairly tight policy U-turns with skill.

During Trumps swing through Israel, many foreign policy observers watched to see if he would make good on one of his campaign promises: moving the US embassy there from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which he called the eternal capital of the Jewish people.

The move would cause outrage in the Muslim world, a concern that the White House appears to be weighing more carefully. We dont think it would be wise to do it at the time, a White House official said during the trip.

A striking shift in tone came during Trumps maiden speech abroad, an address he gave in Saudi Arabia that focused on combatting terrorism.

This is not a battle between different faiths, different sects, or different civilizations, Trump said, sounding surprisingly similar to his predecessor Barack Obama. This is a battle between barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate human life, and decent people of all religions.

He avoided the phrase radical Islamic terrorism even though in the past he has been critical of Obama and others who avoided the phrase as a needless provocation, a slur on Islam. His prepared remarks referred instead to Islamist extremism, which sounds more like condemnation of an ideology, not a religion (he slipped a few times by saying Islamic extremism and Islamic terror, which a senior White House official attributed to fatigue.

Even his wifes wardrobe signaled a change: She didnt cover her head in front of the Saudis. Foreign women arent required to do so, but Trump had been critical of Michelle Obama for failing to honor the local tradition.

Trumps more accommodating posture in Saudi Arabia and Israel was noted with extreme displeasure by representatives of the alt-right, a class of conservatives, some of whom espouse racist and white nationalist views. The president had significant support from that wing during the campaign.

We have a president that is under hostage, who is under control by the Zionists, David Duke said on his radio show Wednesday. The former Ku Klux Klan leader, and onetime Trump endorser, then launched into an anti-Semitic screed about Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, who helped plan the trip and is Jewish.

Even though the tone was new, the trip did not serve to shape anything like a cohesive Trump Doctrine on foreign policy aside from the sense that much is up for negotiation and that America First no longer quite describes it. One result of that could be that other regions of the world will work harder to develop their own unified agendas.

It is an opportunity for Europeans to demonstrate they can be cohesive with or without the United States, said Boris Toucas, a French visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He noted Trumps silence on whether the United States would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions to curb climate change, as an issue where theres room for supporters to make their case.

Hes still reflecting on it, Toucas said. That means there is room for negotiation. The president is now maybe less vocal and takes more time to reflect on things.

Evan Vucci/Associated Press

President Donald Trump posed with NATO leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

Trumps rhetoric on NATO, a favorite punching bag during the campaign, was probably modified the least during the trip. In Brussels Thursday, he sternly lectured assembled alliance leaders.

NATO members must finally contribute their fair share and meet their financial obligations, Trump said, as many of them stood uncomfortably listening. The speech included a cutting remark about the gleaming building where he was giving his address.

I never asked once what the new NATO headquarters cost. I refuse to do that. But it is beautiful, Trump said, of the building that cost $1.2 billion. His intent was plainly to contrast its splendor to the alliances parsimony on defense.

European observers had hoped for a more concrete commitment to the mutual defense clause at the center of the treaty that an attack on one member state is an attack on all. Trumps staff tried to assuage allies.

Its unclear how long the new more politic version of Trump will last. He returns to a Washington roiling with investigations and where the Senate Intelligence Committee gained broad powers to issue subpoenas for its investigation of Trumps campaigns ties to Russia. And Kushner was revealed as a potential subject of the inquiry while Trump was away.

Also in this interval, Trumps team has been filling out a team of lawyers to defend him. That could mean the diplomatic sheen he wore over the past week will soon be gone.

EPA/ALESSANDRA TARANTINO / POOL

President Donald J. Trump (left) in Vatican City on Wednesday.

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A (mostly) presidential Trump on display while abroad - The Boston Globe

Picture: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Trump's been on his first foreign trip as President in the last week and it's been eventful.

He touched an orb in Saudi Arabia, met the Pope and became a meme, got snubbed by Macron and pushed asidethe Prime Minister of Montenegro.

The final leg of his trip was the G7 summit in Sicily, where he met the leaders of Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the UK.

The other six world leaders managed to play nicely posing for a group photo in front of their respective flags after a brief walk.

Trump was late - because he couldn't manage to walk 700 yards (that's about a third of a mile or 640 metres) to take the photo.

He waited for a golf cart and rode down to join the others.

The news has led to an interesting edited version of the leaders.

The photo was taken shortly before Trump refused to pledge his support of the Paris climate deal - the only country in the group of seven not to.

More: 12 pictures of Donald Trump looking awkward meeting world leaders

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Donald Trump rode a golf cart 700 yards instead of walking with world leaders - The indy100

Donald Trump attempts to make a deal with former FBI director James Comey and is visited by Richard Nixon's ghost in The Simpsons' latest biting look into the Trump White House.

The "125 Days" short opens with scandal surrounding the administration, as Trump's closest advisors Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner and Kellyanne Conway all hang from the White House ceiling as Vice President Mike Pence erases the "Vice" from his desk's name plate.

Inside the presidential bedroom, Trump asks the ousted Comey to turn over all evidence that the FBI has against him, and in return Trump promises to erase all of his non-existent tapes. As the walls begin to close in on Trump, Nixon's ghost arrives to offer some advice, from one beleaguered president to another.

"I came to thank you, Donald. I'm moving up. Thanks to you, I'm now the 44th best president," Nixon's ghost said. "I just have one piece of advice: If you have tapes, burn them!"

As always with The Simpsons' Trump-trashing shorts, the best jokes are in the details: The president's nighttime reading includes I'm Still Fired by Bill O'Reilly, How to Lose Friends and Piss Off Israel and Two Scoops for Me. Framed on Trump's wall is a personalized "Get Out of Jail Free" card from Monopoly and, behind Nixon's ghost, the photograph of Trump's secret Oval Office meeting with Sergei Kislyak and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

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Watch Richard Nixon's Ghost Visit Donald Trump in 'Simpsons' Short - RollingStone.com

(NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Sicily) President Donald Trump on Saturday said his maiden first trip abroad was a "home run" and he vowed to overcome the threat of terrorism, concluding a grueling five-stop sprint that ended with the promise of an imminent decision on the much-discussed Paris climate accord.

Trump ended his nine-day trip with a speech to U.S. troops in Sicily, where he recounted his visits to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Belgium and Italy and his work to counter terrorism. The president said recent terrorist attacks in Manchester, England and Egypt underscored the need for the U.S. to "defeat terrorism and protect civilization."

"Terrorism is a threat, bad threat to all of humanity," Trump said, standing in front of a massive American flag at Naval Air Station Sigonella. "And together we will overcome this threat. We will win."

Trump tweeted earlier in the day that he would make a final decision next week on whether to withdraw from the climate pact. European leaders he met with at the Group of 7 summit in Sicily have been pressuring Trump to stay in the accord, arguing that America's leadership on climate is crucial.

Besides reaching a decision on the climate agreement once back in Washington, Trump will also face a new crush of Russia-related controversies. On Friday, the Washington Post reported that Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner spoke with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. about setting up secret communications with Moscow.

Trump held no news conferences during the nine-day trip, which allowed him to avoid questions about the Russia investigations. His top economic and national security advisers refused to answer questions about Kushner during a press briefing Saturday.

The White House had hoped to use Trump's five-stop trip as a moment to reset. The president was warmly received on his opening stops in Saudi Arabia and Israel, though he has come under more pressure in Europe, particularly over the Paris accord.

Trump was cajoled for three days first in Brussels at meetings of NATO and the European Union, then in Sicily for G-7 but will leave Italy without making clear where he stands.

As the G-7 summit came to a close Saturday, the six other members Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan renewed their commitment to the accord. The summit's communique noted that the Trump administration would take more time to consider whether it will remain committed to the 2015 Paris deal to rein in greenhouse gas emissions.

Backing out of the climate accord had been a central plank of Trump's campaign and aides have been exploring whether they can adjust the framework of the deal even if they don't opt out entirely. Other G-7 nations leaned heavily on Trump to stay in the climate deal, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel saying "we put forward very many arguments."

The president's trip has largely gone off without a major misstep, with the administration touting the president's efforts to birth a new coalition to fight terrorism, while admonishing partners in an old alliance to pay their fair share.

"I think we hit a home run no matter where we are," Trump told the soldiers. He also touted his meetings with NATO members, adding, "We're behind NATO all the way." He reiterated a renewed commitment by NATO members to spend more on defense.

Trump was referring to a vow by NATO countries to move toward spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense by 2024. Only five of NATO's 28 members meet the target: Britain, Estonia, debt-laden Greece, Poland and the United States, which spends more on defense than all the other allies combined.

"The U.S. is currently paying much more than any other nation and that is not fair to the United States or the United States taxpayer. So we're working on it and I will tell you, a big difference over the last year, money is actually starting to pour into NATO from countries that would not have been doing what they're doing now had I not been elected, I can tell you that. Money is starting to pour in," Trump said, echoing a tweet earlier Saturday on the subject.

There is no evidence that money has begun to "pour in" and countries do not pay the U.S. or NATO directly. But Germany, for instance, has been increasing its defense spending with the goal of reaching the 2 percent target by 2024.

After the pomp of presidential travel overseas, Trump will return to Washington and many of the problems he left behind.

As a newly appointed special counsel is beginning to investigate links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, Kushner has become a focus of the probe. Kushner's lawyer said he will cooperate with investigators.

James Comey, the former FBI director who led the Russian probe until Trump abruptly fired him, is still expected to testify before Congress about memos he kept on conversations with the president that involved the investigation. Meanwhile, the search for a new FBI director continues.

And Trump's policy agenda has run into problems. The GOP health care bill that passed the House faces uncertain prospects in the Senate after a Congressional Budget Office analysis that it would leave 23 million more Americans uninsured by 2026. The president's budget was widely criticized for deep cuts to safety net programs. And some are starting to question the chances for Trump's pledge to overhaul the U.S. tax code.

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President Trump Calls His First Trip Abroad a 'Home Run' - TIME