POLITICO - News Politics - Rubio’s Rome challenge: Managing an ally, appealing to a pope - May 6, 2026 9:00 pm CET - By Hannah Roberts

 

Rubio’s Rome challenge: Managing an ally, appealing to a pope

With Giorgia Meloni, Washington has leverage. With the Vatican, it has little more than diplomacy.

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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at a G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Cernay-la-Ville , France on March 27, 2026. | Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images

May 6, 2026 9:00 pm CET

By Hannah Roberts

ROME — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio heads to Rome this week with two sensitive missions: contain a public spat with the Vatican and ease tensions with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over defense and trade.

With Meloni, Rubio arrives with leverage.

Italy is under pressure to keep Donald Trump from following through on threats to pull U.S. troops and slap tariffs on European cars. That gives Washington the upper hand — and Meloni an incentive to keep things constructive.

The Vatican is another matter.

Relations between Trump and Pope Leo XIV have deteriorated rapidly, with the president launching increasingly personal attacks on the pontiff — branding him “weak” and “terrible,” and most recently accusing him of “endangering a lot of Catholics.”

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani recently reaffirmed his solidarity with the Pope on X, highlighting the Italian coalition government’s awareness of the unease among its conservative Catholic base over the American leader’s attacks on the Holy Father.

“This visit was born out of a crisis, and is designed to manage its fallout,” senior Vatican official and Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro told POLITICO. “The problem is that the crisis, rather than easing ahead of the meeting, keeps reopening on schedule.”

Spadaro described the U.S. administration as incoherent and at times devoid of a clear strategy. “On one side, Rubio extends a hand and tries to bring the confrontation back to an institutional register; on the other, Trump blows through the diplomatic ceiling his own administration is trying to rebuild.”

The art of the holy deal

Rubio, speaking Tuesday night, signaled the tensions would carry into his meeting with the pope, saying “there’s a lot to talk about with the Vatican,” while echoing Trump’s view that inaction on Iran would be an unacceptable risk.

But his meeting with Pope Leo is no traditional negotiation.

“No one has leverage on the Vatican … You have to engage the Vatican with reason … After 2,000 years, they are still there, still on top. You can’t pressure them,” said Francesco Sisci, a Vatican expert at the Rome-based Appia Institute.

The Vatican does not fear tariffs, does not rely on U.S. backing and does not face the political pressures that typically shape diplomatic outcomes, he explained.

Rubio’s meeting with Pope Leo is no traditional negotiation. | Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images

That leaves Rubio in an unfamiliar position — not bargaining, but appealing.

Talks are expected to range from the Middle East and Iran to what the State Department describes as “mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere,” including Cuba.

Following speculation that the Cuban-American Rubio could use the meeting to assure Vatican acquiescence on potential American military action in the Caribbean island, a U.S. official dismissed the idea that Rubio is seeking approval.

“He is a committed Catholic and is going to speak candidly with the church about the state of the U.S.-Vatican relationship,” the official said. “But contrary to some false media narratives, he is not going to ‘ask permission’ for anything … If President Trump decided to act to protect our national security, he will not ask the pope’s permission.”

Whatever else is on the schedule, the Vatican meeting is the one that matters most. “Rubio is clearly coming here for the pope. Meloni is a side dish,” said Vatican expert Sisci.

Meloni’s political balancing act

Side dish or not, his talks with Meloni will be shaped by political pressure: With leverage over tariffs, security guarantees and defense cooperation, the U.S. holds the stronger hand, and Rome knows it.

The secretary of state is expected to sit down with the prime minister, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Defense Minister Guido Crosetto on Friday.

But the Italian government has remained tight-lipped, declining to comment, underscoring the high stakes of the talks.

Signals from the Italian government in recent days have pointed toward de-escalation by telling Trump what he wants to hear. As the American president attempts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Meloni wrote on X that freedom of navigation is “a fundamental principle of international law and essential for the global economy.”

And Crosetto said at an event during Italy’s Armed Forces Day that “in a world that has gone crazy … it is our duty to ensure that Italy can defend itself,” validating Trump’s longstanding demand that NATO allies should do — and spend — more to defend themselves.

Meloni will try to convey alignment when she sits down with Rubio, including through increased defense spending, according to analyst Filippo Simonelli of the Rome-based Istituto Affari Internazionali think tank. And longer-term commitments offer a potential path to ease tensions without requiring immediate public concessions: Crosetto’s meeting is a sign that something could move in that direction, Simonelli argued.

“Italy is not strictly necessary, but the U.S. is losing ground with allies, so reinforcing ties with a middle power may in the end be worth the effort,” continued Simonelli. “They will likely try to find some meeting point and a path forward for cooperation.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is navigating a more complicated domestic landscape. | Simona Granati – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

On Wednesday, the leaders of Meloni’s coalition huddled ahead of Rubio’s visit to coordinate strategy. From the Italian perspective, it also helps that the emissary is Rubio, viewed by many in Rome as closer to a pre-2016 Republican internationalist than figures like JD Vance, widely seen in European capitals as hostile to what they regard as freeloading allies.

Rubio has also built goodwill with Rome through cooperation with Tajani on Venezuela, including efforts to secure the release of detained Italians.

At the same time, Meloni is navigating a more complicated domestic landscape. Since the war on Iran, public opinion in Italy has grown increasingly wary of Trump, limiting how far she can go in publicly embracing Washington.

But she also faces pressure from the right ahead of elections next year, with Trump’s messaging still resonating with parts of her base. That dynamic makes quiet alignment more likely than public concessions, said Simonelli.

For Rubio, the trip underscores a broader reality: American power still matters, but not everywhere in the same way.

“No one in their right mind can pressure the Vatican,” warned Vatican expert Sisci. “They are ready to be martyred. You can burn the pope, change the pope, you have no leverage.”

Nahal Toosi contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.