Secretary of State Rubio to Visit Italy and Vatican Amid US-Europe Tensions and New Papacy

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to arrive in Rome on May 7 for two days of meetings that carry more diplomatic freight than any Vatican visit by an American official in recent memory. He will meet Pope Leo XIV — the first American-born pope — at a moment when the president Rubio serves has called that pope "weak on crime" and "terrible for foreign policy" [1]. He will sit across from Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani while Trump publicly mulls withdrawing the nearly 13,000 U.S. troops stationed on Italian soil [2]. And he will attempt all of this while navigating his own complicated history as a one-time champion of the very NATO alliance his administration now threatens to abandon [3].

The trip is being described by Italian media as an effort to "thaw" relations that have frozen over rapidly since mid-April, when Trump launched an extraordinary series of public attacks on Pope Leo XIV over the pontiff's criticism of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign in Iran [4]. Trump then turned on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, once considered his closest European ally, for defending the pope, dismissing her as lacking courage [1].

The Trump-Pope Leo Rift: Unprecedented in Modern Diplomacy

The confrontation between Trump and Pope Leo XIV has no clean parallel in modern U.S.-Vatican relations. While popes and presidents have disagreed before — John Paul II opposed the 2003 Iraq War, and Francis clashed with Trump over immigration during the 2016 campaign — the current exchange has been far more personal and sustained [5].

The trigger was Leo's vocal opposition to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, framed in the moral language of just-war theology. Trump responded by accusing the pope of "siding with Iran" and demanding he stop criticizing U.S. policy. "If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican," Trump wrote on social media [6]. He further called the pope "a very liberal person" who was "catering to the radical left" [7].

Leo, for his part, has refused to back down. "I have no fear of neither the Trump administration nor of speaking out loudly about the message in the Gospel," he told reporters at the start of an 11-day Africa tour in April [8]. His willingness to name Trump directly — a departure from Vatican diplomatic convention — signals a papacy that will not treat confrontation with Washington as something to be managed through quiet channels alone [5].

The rift extends beyond Iran. Since his election in May 2025, Leo has built a record of direct engagement on issues that put him at odds with the administration. He characterized the treatment of long-term immigrants in the United States as "extremely disrespectful, to say the least" [9]. His first apostolic exhortation directly confronted Trump-era immigration enforcement policies [10]. He endorsed a U.S. bishops' pastoral letter rejecting mass expulsions and calling for the protection of human dignity alongside national security [11].

As the first pope who holds American citizenship — he is a dual citizen of the United States and Peru — Leo occupies a position no predecessor has held. His biography as a missionary who lived among the poor in Peru gives his statements on migration a personal authority that is difficult for the White House to dismiss as foreign interference [12].

What Rubio Is Walking Into: The Italian Equation

The Italian dimension of this visit is nearly as fraught as the Vatican one. Rubio is expected to meet Tajani and Crosetto, but as of this writing, a meeting with Meloni herself has not been confirmed [13]. The Irish Times reported that Rubio was "left waiting on a request" to meet the prime minister — a diplomatic signal that Italy is not eager to appear as if it is seeking American approval [13].

Meloni's political situation adds a layer of complexity. She commands a parliamentary majority through her coalition with the centrist Forza Italia and the nativist League. But Trump's public criticism of her, combined with Italy's economic headwinds, has created what Foreign Policy described as a "failed populist formula," raising questions about the coalition's performance in the 2027 parliamentary elections [14]. Center-left opposition parties have begun talks about organizing a primary to name a coalition leader [14].

For Meloni, a high-profile embrace of Rubio could alienate Italian voters who recoiled at Trump's attacks on the pope — a figure of enormous cultural significance in Italy regardless of church attendance. But snubbing the visit entirely would risk further deterioration of a relationship with Washington that her government has cultivated as a strategic asset. The meeting with Crosetto, the defense minister, rather than Meloni directly, may represent a deliberate middle path: serious engagement on substance without the optics of a summit [13].

Italy hosts almost 13,000 U.S. active-duty soldiers across six military bases, including the Navy's European headquarters in Naples and the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vicenza — the Army's rapid-deployment contingency force for Europe and Africa [2]. Trump's statement that "Italy has not been of any help to us" and his suggestion that he would "probably" withdraw troops is not an abstract threat for Italian defense planners [15].

The Troop Drawdown: Numbers, Bases, and Strategic Stakes

The immediate military backdrop to Rubio's visit is the Pentagon's announcement that 5,000 troops will be withdrawn from Germany over the next six to twelve months [16]. Germany hosts the largest concentration of U.S. forces in Europe — approximately 36,400 personnel out of roughly 68,000 stationed across the continent as of late 2025 [16]. Trump has signaled this is only the beginning: "We're going to cut way down, and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000" [16].

Source: Stars and Stripes / NPR

Data as of Dec 1, 2025CSV

The withdrawals have drawn bipartisan criticism in Washington. A defense bill passed by Congress limits the Defense Department's ability to reduce U.S. troop levels in Europe below 76,000 [17]. Senior Republican lawmakers, including members of Trump's own party, warned that "prematurely reducing America's forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realized risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin" [18].

NATO is still assessing the operational implications. The alliance's secretary general has asked for formal details from Washington [19]. Germany's defense minister characterized the withdrawal as "anticipated" but said it underlined the urgency of European defense self-sufficiency [20].

The administration frames the drawdowns as part of a broader strategic rebalancing toward the Indo-Pacific to counter China, and as pressure on European allies to increase their own defense contributions [16]. This connects to the longest-running American grievance about the transatlantic alliance: burden-sharing.

The Burden-Sharing Argument: What the Data Actually Shows

For years, the core American complaint has been that European allies free-ride on U.S. defense spending. The data tells a more nuanced story than either side typically acknowledges.

In 2014, when NATO members agreed at the Wales Summit to move toward spending 2% of GDP on defense, only three allies met the target. By 2025, every NATO member is expected to meet or exceed the 2% threshold — a milestone that represents the fastest sustained increase in European defense investment since the Cold War [21]. The average across the alliance reached 2.76% of GDP [21]. European allies and Canada collectively invested more than $574 billion (in 2021 prices) in defense in 2025, up from 1.4% of combined GDP in 2014 to 2.3% [22].

Source: NATO

Data as of Jun 1, 2025CSV

Poland leads the alliance at 4.48% of GDP, followed by Lithuania at 4% and Latvia at 3.73% — all frontline states facing Russia [21]. The United States spends 3.57%. Italy, the country Rubio is visiting, sits at 2.08%, and Spain at 2.05% [21].

At the 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, allies committed to a new target: 5% of GDP on defense and security-related spending by 2035 [22]. Critics of the current U.S. posture argue that even at 2%, most European militaries lack the expeditionary capabilities, logistics, and intelligence infrastructure to operate independently of American support. Defenders counter that the trajectory is sharply upward and that abruptly withdrawing U.S. forces now — just as Europeans are finally investing — would be self-defeating.

The steelman case for U.S. critics is straightforward: American taxpayers have spent decades subsidizing the defense of wealthy nations that chose to invest in social programs instead. The counterargument is equally direct: forward-deployed U.S. forces in Europe serve American strategic interests — power projection, intelligence collection, logistics hubs for Middle East and Africa operations — and are not a charitable gift.

Rubio's Contradictions: NATO Champion Turned Administration Voice

Rubio's own record on NATO makes him an unusual envoy for this particular mission. In December 2023, as a senator, he posted: "No U.S. President should be able to withdraw from NATO without Senate approval." He co-sponsored legislation to that effect, which passed the Senate [3]. Bloomberg reported that this law now represents a direct hurdle to Trump's NATO exit threats [23].

Yet as Secretary of State, Rubio has aligned himself with the administration's confrontational posture. After European allies declined to support the U.S.-Israeli campaign in Iran, Rubio declared there was "no doubt" Washington would have to "reexamine" its relationship with NATO [24]. He warned European allies to "meet obligations or lose US support" [25].

There are signs of a rhetorical middle ground. At a speech to world leaders, Rubio said the U.S. and Europe "belong together" while pushing for a reshaped alliance on Trump's terms [26]. PBS characterized his approach as "reassuring skeptical European allies" while "following Trump's vision" [27]. Compared to Vice President Vance's combative 2025 Munich Security Conference address, Rubio has adopted a softer tone — though the underlying policy demands remain the same [27].

Whether Rubio is executing policy or subtly moderating it from within is a question that hangs over the Rome visit. White House officials have not publicly contradicted his statements, but the gap between his Senate record and his current rhetoric leaves room for interpretation on both sides of the Atlantic.

What the Vatican Wants — and What Leverage It Has

If the Rubio-Leo meeting produces more than photographs, it will likely be because the Vatican presses on specific humanitarian issues where it has institutional credibility and moral authority.

The Holy See's current diplomatic priorities include an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages, and unhindered humanitarian access for Palestinian civilians [28]. Leo met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and called for a two-state solution [28]. On nuclear weapons, the Vatican has reiterated support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and warned that AI integration into nuclear command systems increases "the risk of miscalculation" [29]. The Holy See has also rejected Trump's proposed "Board of Peace" initiative, insisting that international crises should be handled through established multilateral institutions, particularly the United Nations [30].

The Vatican's leverage is real but indirect. It has no military, no sanctions authority, and no vote in international bodies (it holds permanent observer status at the UN). What it has is a network of 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, a diplomatic corps that reaches into virtually every country, and a moral voice that can shift public opinion in ways that affect domestic politics — particularly in heavily Catholic nations like Italy, Poland, the Philippines, and across Latin America [31].

Historical precedent offers a mixed record. The Vatican's most consequential diplomatic intervention was arguably its role, alongside the Reagan administration, in undermining Soviet influence in Eastern Europe during the 1980s [31]. Pope John Paul II's support for Solidarity in Poland contributed to a chain of events that reshaped the continent. But the Vatican opposed the 2003 Iraq War without preventing it, opposed U.S. interventions in Central America in the 1980s without stopping them, and has consistently called for Middle East peace without producing it [31].

The pattern suggests the Vatican is most effective when its moral authority aligns with existing political momentum — amplifying movements rather than creating them. On Iran, Gaza, and nuclear arms, Pope Leo may be able to raise political costs for the administration among Catholic voters and allied governments, but direct policy change driven by a papal audience would be historically unusual.

Historical Context: How Rare Is This?

Since the United States established full diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984, every sitting president has visited the Vatican [32]. Secretary of State visits have been relatively routine diplomatic events — Mike Pompeo visited in 2020, John Kerry in 2014 and 2016, Hillary Clinton in 2009 and 2012.

What makes Rubio's trip unusual is not the visit itself but the conditions surrounding it. The combination of a public presidential feud with the pope, active threats to withdraw troops from the host country, and a broader rupture in the transatlantic alliance over an ongoing military conflict has no direct precedent in the post-Cold War era. The Wikipedia entry for the "2026 United States-Holy See rift" — the fact that such an entry exists — suggests the current moment has already been recognized as historically distinct [33].

The closest analogue may be the period following the 2003 Iraq War, when the Vatican's opposition to the invasion created friction with the Bush administration. But George W. Bush never personally attacked Pope John Paul II, and the U.S. was not simultaneously threatening to withdraw forces from NATO allies. The current crisis is multi-layered in a way that previous tensions were not.

What Success Looks Like — and What Failure Costs

For Rubio, success in Rome would mean lowering the temperature without making commitments Trump would repudiate. A joint statement affirming shared values, a handshake photograph with Leo that signals mutual respect, and a defense conversation with Crosetto that avoids an ultimatum on troop withdrawals would all count as wins.

For Pope Leo, the visit is an opportunity to demonstrate that the Vatican remains a relevant diplomatic actor even when — especially when — it is in conflict with the world's most powerful government. A meeting that produces concrete humanitarian commitments, even modest ones, would reinforce the pope's standing.

For Meloni, the calculus is about domestic survival. If she meets Rubio, she risks looking subservient to an administration that insulted her. If she doesn't, she risks further damage to a bilateral relationship that underpins Italian security. The reported decision to have Tajani and Crosetto take the meetings suggests she is choosing strategic ambiguity for now [13].

The stakes extend beyond any single meeting. If the U.S. follows through on broader troop withdrawals from Europe — Trump has floated reductions well beyond the 5,000 already announced — the military balance on the continent shifts in ways that will take years to address. If the Trump-Leo rift hardens into a permanent breach, it will mark the first sustained confrontation between a U.S. president and the papacy since the establishment of formal diplomatic relations. And if NATO's institutional cohesion fractures under the weight of disputes over Iran, burden-sharing, and American disengagement, the consequences will outlast any single administration.

Rubio arrives in Rome carrying all of these tensions in his briefcase. Whether he can resolve any of them in 48 hours is doubtful. Whether he can prevent them from getting worse may be the more realistic measure of success.