WASHINGTON – The U.S. government has sent just seven registered participants to a key United Nations meeting on the Paris climate agreement – a smaller delegation than Zimbabwe – underscoring the Trump administration's deep ambivalence about the historic agreement.

White House officials are expected to huddle today to discuss the fate of the agreement – with business leaders and the international community pressing the U.S. to stay in the agreement, and Trump's conservative allies urging an exit.

The meeting in Bonn, Germany, represents the first of two gatherings this week where international partners will pressure the increasingly recalcitrant U.S. to affirm its role in the agreement of more than 190 nations.

Other industrialized nations such as China, France, and Germany each sent dozens of officials – the French delegation alone had 42. The U.S. sent 44 official participants just last year.

In Fairbanks, Alaska, on Thursday, the U.S. will host a ministerial of the eight nation Arctic Council, an event sure to highlight rapid changes to the fastest warming part of the Earth.

In recent days, White House officials have taken an apparent turn away from remaining in the Paris climate agreement, with several administration officials arguing that the accord binds the Trump administration into the ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goal promised by the Obama administration, or something even stronger.

That interpretation is contested by many legal experts, however, as well as participants in past international climate negotiations.

“Having been intensely involved in such negotiations for a long time, there can be no doubt that Paris is utterly nonbinding, and therefore, each country is free to adjust their pledges in accordance with their own national circumstances,” said James Connaughton, who headed the White House Council on Environmental Quality under President George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, a wave of international and domestic lobbying has intensified, with foreign allies and many corporations calling for the U.S. to stick with the deal, even as U.S. political conservatives push for a withdrawal.

The Paris climate agreement, struck at U.N. talks in December 2015, joins together the voluntary carbon-cutting pledges of over 190 countries. The parties to the agreement are expected to increase their ambitions over time, with the goal of eventually setting the world on a course to limit global warming to “well below” a 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit rise over temperatures seen in the late 1800s.

The Obama administration pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below their 2005 levels by the year 2025. Yet even this ambitious pledge, combined with those of other nations, is not enough to keep the world within the 2-degree temperature limit, which is why increased ambition over time is central to the agreement.

The divide within the White House is between those, like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, who would have the U.S. revise its commitment downward, and those like EPA administrator Scott Pruitt who believe simply remaining in the deal at all opens the administration up to legal challenges to its domestic energy policies.

On Monday, 40 conservative organizations sent Trump a letter “in enthusiastic support of your campaign commitments to withdraw fully from the Paris Climate Treaty and to stop all taxpayer funding of UN global warming programs.” The groups argue that the U.S. might consider withdrawing from the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Meanwhile, Google, Apple, and more than 20 other firms took out an ad in the New York Times on Monday throwing their support behind the agreement.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer has said that it will make up its mind about whether or not to stay in the Paris agreement before the G-7 meeting in Italy at the end of this month.