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Analysis
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman reacts next to US President Donald Trump during the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 13, 2025.
For the first time in seven years, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman is returning to Washington, DC, this week. While crude oil has traditionally pulled the two countries close together, it is now the great power-chess game between the US and China that is making them join forces.
MBS, as the de-facto Saudi leader is known, and US President Donald Trump have much to discuss when it comes to peace in the Middle East. The chances of Saudi Arabia recognizing Israel by joining the Abraham Accords are slim. Nonetheless, defense agreements will be on the table, as Saudi Arabia seeks to bolster its protections in what has been a tumultuous year in the region.
The US-Saudi relationship has come full circle since the crown prince’s last visit in 2018. Since then, there was the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi – reportedly sanctioned by the crown prince – at a Saudi consulate in Turkey, which created major tensions. Those were exacerbated after Riyadh got upset with Washington when it refused to respond to the 2019 Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities. Then, during the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden suggested Saudi Arabia should be a “pariah.” Biden then sought to ease tensions in 2022, as he wanted Riyadh to pump more oil to alleviate high inflation rates. And now the AI race between the US and China has pushed Riyadh and Washington closer together.
“[Khashoggi’s death] hung like a pall over MBS reputation in the United States,” Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Initiative in Washington, told GZERO. “Time has worn away the sting a little bit.”
The Middle East has also changed dramatically over the past seven years. Israel was locked in a brutal war with Hamas for the past two years, with a fragile ceasefire keeping the peace for now. More Arab nations are concerned about the conflict spilling over, too, especially after Israel bombed Qatar in a failed bid to kill Hamas leaders. Meanwhile, the influence of Saudi’s top enemy, Iran, has diminished, as its proxies in the region – the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza – have all been hobbled or even removed.
“Iran is no longer the strategic threat that it was seven years ago,” Ibish said. “[But] there is still this need on the part of Saudi Arabia for American security guarantees.”
So what will Trump and bin Salman discuss? First and foremost for the crown prince will be defense. There are two aspects to this: firstly, Saudi wants a defense agreement akin to what the US signed with Qatar, ensuring that the US will defend the Gulf state in case of attack. Secondly, the Saudis want to buy F-35 planes from the US – Israel is the only Middle East country that has successfully negotiated and executed a purchase agreement of F-35s.
“The US public and US government and Trump have been a little bit more critical of Israel,” Alia Awadallah, who was a Pentagon official during Biden’s term in office, told GZERO, suggesting that the US may be willing to sell to a country other than Israel. “[Saudi Arabia] will be trying to assess whether it’s actually realistic to get that type of sale through both the White House, but also through Congress, which would have to approve it.”
The US is sure to bring up something that has layed tantalizingly out of reach: the Abraham Accords. Trump is reportedly still pressing MBS to recognize Israel and join the Accords, arguing that the peace he successfully brokered in Gaza should be enough to prompt Riyadh to do so. But the crown prince has repeatedly said that he wouldn’t do this until Israel recognizes a Palestinian state, so the chances of him signing the accords on this trip are close to null.
“At a minimum, this requires phase two of the Gaza ceasefire being implemented, and Israeli assurances regarding the Palestinian right of self determination,” said Eurasia Group’s Middle East Director Firas Maksad. “And we’re not there yet.”
If there’s no agreement on the Accords, there’s likely to be more on artificial intelligence. It is this area – rather than oil – that is pushing the two countries closer together, per Maksad. Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May was all about AI, with Saudi firms pledging billions of dollars in investments. In return, Riyadh wants access to items like Nvidia’s AI chips for its data centers. Meanwhile the US wants to see those incoming investments, while ensuring that Saudi secures rights to critical minerals in Africa, grants US access to them, and blocks China from getting them. This trip will be a chance to firm up these AI ties.
“Although the headlines continue to be animated by the prospect of normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia… that is the wrong lens to be looking at things,” said Maksad. “This [US-Saudi] relationship is increasingly shaped by great power competitions, particularly US-China dynamics, rather than anything specific to the region and the Arab-Israeli conflict.”
Supporters of Jose Antonio Kast, presidential candidate of the far-right Republican Party, wave Chilean flags as they attend one of Kast's last closing campaign rallies, ahead of the November 16 presidential election, in Santiago, Chile, on November 11, 2025.
This Sunday, close to 16 million Chilean voters will head to the polls in a starkly polarized presidential election shaped by rising fears of crime and immigration.
The vote comes after a tumultuous few years in normally staid Chile, the world’s largest copper producer and the wealthiest large economy in Latin America.
Under the presidency of youthful left-winger Gabriel Boric, who was elected in 2021 following mass protests over inequality, Chilean voters rejected two separate rewrites of the constitution which were meant to address living costs, pensions, and employment.
One was too liberal, enshrining “cosmovisions” in the national charter. The other was too conservative, hewing too closely to the existing constitution written half a century ago under rightwing autocrat Augusto Pinochet.
Now, despite some successes in strengthening labor laws and winning a bruising fight over pension reforms, Boric is set to leave office deeply unpopular, with an approval rating in the 30s and an economy in the doldrums.
After so much upheaval, “the public appetite for sweeping changes has receded,” says Maria Luisa Puig, an expert at Eurasia Group.
Chileans’ main concerns now are, as in many Latin American countries, crime and migration. Nearly half of voters say crime is the number one issue for them, while 30% point to the border, according to Chilean pollster Activa. Only about 20% cite unemployment.
Although homicides have been falling since a 2022 peak, they are still double what they were ten years ago. Kidnappings remain near historic highs.
At the same time, immigration has soared, in particular from Venezuela – there are nearly 700,000 Venezuelan migrants in the country, almost tenfold the number from 2017. A rash of high profile killings and shootouts by Venezuelan gangs has fueled a backlash against immigrants more broadly.
Who’s running in the election?
Topping the polls, with about 27% support, is Jeanette Jara, a lifelong member of the Communist Party who served as Boric’s Labor Minister. She wants to increase the minimum wage, boost social spending, and modernize the police.
Trailing her are two hard-right politicians. One is José Antonio Kast, an ultra-conservative Catholic father of nine who lost to Boric in 2021, who wants to seal the border, cut spending, and expand prisons. He polls at roughly 20%. The other, libertarian Johannes Kaiser, goes further, pledging to slash two-thirds of government ministries immediately, to crack down on migration, and to withdraw from global pacts on climate change and human rights. Like Kast, he openly admires Pinochet.
Jara’s lead is deceptive. The right wing vote is badly fragmented – a result of the conservative candidates’ inability to agree on a unified primary earlier this year.
With no one set to win more than 50% of the vote, the election will go to a December runoff featuring the top two finishers from this Sunday. Jara will be one of them, and Kast is likely to be the other, though Kaiser has seen a late bump in the polls.
Polls suggest Jara, facing a united right wing and conservative vote, would lose in any head-to-head matchup. With Chileans in a “throw-the-bums out” frame of mind, her ties to Boric are a liability.
In the end, Puig says, “this is a ‘change’ election.” And according to polls, Chileans are ready for it. For the first time in more than four years, a majority say they are “optimistic” about the future of the country.
More soon: the results should be in by Monday morning.
A robot waiter, serving drinks at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair, in Paris, on May 24, 2024.
- Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect
Imagine sitting down at a restaurant, speaking your order into your menu, and immediately watching a robot arrive with your food. Imagine the food being made quickly, precisely — and without a human involved, because the entire restaurant is fully roboticized.
Imagine those robots were made in China, powered by the next generation of AI.
This is all quite plausible. According to the International Federation of Robotics, global sales of professional service robots reached almost 200,000 units in 2024. More than one-fifth of those units were deployed in hospitality and service roles, including front-desk assistants and food-and-beverage delivery. One cafe in Beijing is now fully staffed with autonomous robots, which can talk to customers, take orders, and deliver drinks entirely on their own. The future of AI is physical, as Ian Bremmer recently noted.
China is the epicenter, now producing the majority of all worldwide robots, while the US falls increasingly behind. One recent study projected the size of China’s service-robot industry to reach $7.2 billion by 2031, accelerated by generous government subsidies and a focused industrial policy. From a Chinese perspective this makes sense, especially in light of their looming demographic bubble. By 2050, the country will have 150 million fewer people; China is leaning into robots instead.
Keenon is a market leader. It’s worth browsing their catalogue: Kleenbot, a simple roomba-like cleaner; Butlerbot, an R2D2-esque droid for hotels; Dinnerbot, a more complex automated waiter; and XMAN, a fully scifi humanoid robot with a base like a Segway. Keenon ships to over 600 global cities with no signs of slowing down.
Many societies are not ready.
Swapping a human greeter for a robot in a hotel lobby is far more visible than swapping a human assembler in a distant factory for algorithm-driven automation. The robot is public. It is physical. And it is branded — and if the brand is foreign, the communal understanding will be simple: “their machine replaced our person.”
Robotics firms of all nationalities know this risk, and marketing materials often emphasise robots’ “assistant” roles. Yet the scale and global spread of robotic deployments will be unspinnable. Countries will face difficult questions: Do they allow foreign-made service robots for their efficiency gains? Or do they regulate and protect domestic labor, potentially excluding or throttling foreign or global robot makers?
Governments will also be confronted with a national security challenge. If your country has millions of foreign robots, each with cameras, microphones, and motors, what happens if you have friction with their maker? At minimum your robots would likely be used as widespread spies. Beyond that, foreign robotics firms could disrupt your economy by remotely disabling the robots — the manufacturer could perhaps blame vague “glitches.” In the worst-case scenario, robots could rise up as guerilla fighters against their putative owners.
In the end, China’s surge in retail and service-robot exports may be as geopolitically significant as its earlier dominance in consumer electronics. The difference now is public-facing: a robot in a restaurant or lobby is more visible than a smartphone in your pocket. And if that robot is Chinese-made, the message takes on geopolitical overtones. The next time you are served by a machine, you might also be served a symbol — of automation, of global labour shifts, and of the next global convulsion.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, Rama Duwaji, MIRA NAIR, MAMOOD MAMDANI during an election night event at The Brooklyn Paramount Theater in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
Last Tuesday, a self-identified democratic socialist who ran on making New York affordable for the 99% won the city’s mayoral race in a landslide, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. And the reactions have been predictably hysterical.
Some critics are claiming that Mamdani will impose Sharia law and turn New York into Venezuela. Business leaders and billionaires are warning about a mass exodus. The Washington Post editorial board sees "class warfare" on the horizon. And President Trump, never one to waste an opportunity for confrontation, is threatening to cut federal funding to the city.
Everyone needs to take a breath. Yes, a 34-year-old Muslim who's never managed anything bigger than a state assembly office with five staffers just won the most powerful mayoral job in America on a platform of free buses, rent freezes, universal childcare, and soaking the rich. But most of that isn’t going to happen. Why? Because the mayor of New York City, for all the pomp and circumstance of the office, has remarkably little unilateral power to do... well, almost anything.
Let’s start with the most basic and binding constraint on Mamdani: money. The city is legally required to run a balanced expense budget each year, meaning that every dollar the mayor wants to spend on new programs has to come from somewhere else – either budget cuts elsewhere or new revenue.
Mamdani has proposed increasing the top corporate tax rate from 7.25% to 11.5% and levying an additional 2% tax on incomes over $1 million to fund his ambitious agenda. But – and this is key – the mayor of New York can’t raise income or business taxes on his own. The power of the purse belongs exclusively to the state legislature in Albany and requires Governor Kathy Hochul's signature.
And Hochul – a centrist Democrat who was Andrew Cuomo's lieutenant governor – has already ruled out tax hikes. "I'm not raising taxes at a time where affordability is the big issue," she stated flatly. Not surprising given that New York already has a combined top marginal income tax rate of 51.776 percent – the highest in the nation. Mamdani could raise property taxes with City Council approval, but that wouldn't solve his problem – property taxes don't discriminate by income, hit middle-class homeowners and co-op owners who've already seen taxes skyrocket, get passed through to renters, and wouldn't raise nearly enough to fund his agenda anyway.
What does this mean for free buses? Mamdani made this a centerpiece of his campaign, but it’d cost the Metropolitan Transportation Authority $630 million annually in lost fares, and the mayor doesn't control the MTA – the governor does. To make buses free, he would need to get either the City Council to approve funding replacement or the state to pony up the money.
What about universal childcare? The mayor could operationally run such a program, but funding it would cost $5 billion annually – requiring either massive budget cuts elsewhere or tax increases he can't authorize and Albany and Hochul won’t. A $30 minimum wage by 2030? Can't do it without the state legislature. Building 200,000 affordable housing units? That would require borrowing $70 billion, $30 billion more than the city's debt limit – and Albany’s approval is needed for that, too. Are you starting to see a pattern?
Even the rent freeze – probably Mamdani’s most viable promise – would face challenges. Yes, the mayor appoints the Rent Guidelines Board, and there’s precedent for political appointees freezing rents. But the RGB is supposed to follow economic indicators or risk lawsuits, and it doesn't always do what the mayor wants. Crucially, even if Mamdani gets his freeze, it’d only cover about one million rent-stabilized apartments – not market-rate units, condos, co-ops, or the thousands of newer "affordable" units governed by federal and state regulations.
What can Mamdani do? He can make buses faster through dedicated bus lanes and Department of Transportation enforcement. He can open city-run grocery stores through the Economic Development Corporation, which already operates retail food operations, for relatively little money. He can reorganize the NYPD to create an Office of Community Safety, even if a full department would need City Council approval. And he can use new charter amendments passed in November—which reduce City Council and community board veto power over housing—to accelerate private development, even if he can't fund the government-built affordable housing he promised. Not nothing, but not exactly a socialist revolution.
The good news is that Mamdani’s tenure doesn’t need to be revolutionary to be successful. Fiorello La Guardia had it right when he said, “There is no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage.” There isn't a socialist way either. What most New Yorkers will care about when they go back to the polls in four years is whether their mayor kept the subways running, the trash collected, the schools functioning, and the streets safe. That’s what the job is largely about, and why the mayor’s real power isn't passing laws or raising taxes but appointing hundreds of commissioners and department heads and managing the 300,000-person workforce that runs city services. Here's where a truly radical mayor could do real damage: hiring incompetent ideologues and cronies to run the NYPD, the Department of Education, sanitation, emergency management, and so on.
Given Mamdani’s lack of an administrative track record, the jury is still out on whether he will govern as an ideologue or a pragmatist. But the early signs are encouraging. His transition team is heavy on people with actual records of accomplishment. He’s talking to experienced hands like Maria Torres-Springer, who's served multiple mayors and knows how to get things done at City Hall. He’s expressed a desire to keep Jessica Tisch as police commissioner, a widely respected technocrat whom business leaders and moderates trust. And in his victory speech on Tuesday night, Mamdani quoted his defeated opponent’s dad Mario Cuomo about campaigning in poetry but governing in prose, signaling that he understands the job ahead will take more than just slogans.
The real risk isn't that Mamdani will turn New York into a socialist hellhole, but that he won't be able to accomplish much of anything at all. This isn't some low-tax, low-spending jurisdiction where a progressive can open the spigots and transform society. New York already has some of the highest taxes and spending in the country. But the problems that actually make the city so unaffordable – entrenched public unions with ironclad contracts, overregulation, a bloated bureaucracy – have no easy fixes and are mostly beyond any mayor's control.
We've been here before. When progressive Bill de Blasio won the mayoralty in 2013 on a very similar “soak the rich” campaign, the same people predicted an apocalypse. Crime would explode, the tax base would flee to Florida, and the city would enter a death spiral. De Blasio made many mistakes during his eight years at Grace Mansion, but none of that (save for crime going up during the pandemic, not just here but everywhere) came to pass. New York remained New York: dirty, noisy, expensive, still the greatest city in the world.
I don’t know if Mamdani will be a good mayor. But people who've been predicting the death of New York for forty years still haven't learned that betting against the city is a sucker's game. We’ve survived far worse than an inexperienced progressive mayor with big ideas and limited power. And if you look past all the pearl-clutching, Mamdani’s victory reveals something far more interesting about where American politics is headed.
Mamdani ran a left-wing populist campaign focused almost entirely on one thing: affordability. He didn't win on identity politics or progressive social policy or democracy or Trump's corruption. He won by speaking to New Yorkers’ economic anxiety while mostly avoiding the more polarizing cultural issues that alienate moderate voters and tear the Democratic Party apart.
And here's the thing: economic anxiety resonates far beyond New York. Yes, the city's electorate is younger, wealthier, more educated, and less white than the rest of the country. These people are particularly concerned that they and their children won't have the opportunities their parents had – whether because of inflation, housing costs, student debt, AI displacement, or disillusionment with capitalism. But voters everywhere are angry at a system that feels rigged for the rich and powerful, less meritocratic capitalism than kleptocracy. That grievance is not exclusive to liberal urbanites.
Just as Trump won by convincing Americans that democracy was broken and he alone could fix it, expect to see a wave of left-wing economic populism that mirrors right-wing Trumpism but comes from a completely different place. Neither the current Democratic establishment nor Trump himself – who's abandoned "drain the swamp" for pay-to-play corruption – is positioned to capitalize on this energy.
It won't be Mamdani either. His Israel-Palestine and identity-politics positions don't play nationally like they do in deep-blue New York (frankly, neither do his demographics). But his economic playbook will. The candidates who can speak most credibly to economic anxiety and promise to disrupt a captured system – without the culture-war baggage – will have an edge in 2026 and 2028.
- What We’re Watching: Far-left upstart wins NYC mayoral primary, NATO members to boost defense spending, Iran nuclear damage in doubt ›
- Why Mamdani’s win matters ›
- How Israel made it onto the ballot in the NYC mayoral race ›
- Now the real work begins ›
- What Zohran Mamdani’s win really signals for US politics ›
- Zohran Mamdani and America's political future ›
A fruit and vegetable stall is lit by small lamps during a blackout in a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 6, 2025, after massive Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in October.
As a fourth winter of war approaches, Russia is destroying Ukraine’s energy grid faster than it can be rebuilt. “We lost everything we were restoring,” Centrenergo, one of Ukraine's largest power operators, said on Facebook following a devastating weekend assault that reduced the country's energy capacity to “zero.”
Since Sunday, most of Ukraine has been plunged into intermittent darkness as the government schedules rolling blackouts to preserve what little power remains. Russian drones and missiles have pummeled power plants, substations, and gas infrastructure in a relentless campaign that has intensified as temperatures drop. Further complicating the situation, Ukrainian authorities charged senior energy officials with a $100 million kickback scheme – which has outraged the public and raised concerns that graft could ward off desperately needed energy assistance from the European Union.
“Since the start of the war, Russia’s main objective in attacking civilian energy infrastructure is to demoralize the population and inflict economic damage,” says Eurasia Group analyst Dani Podogoretskaya. The targets extend beyond power facilities to hospitals, apartment buildings, schools, and kindergartens – all aimed at breaking Ukrainian resolve.
More than three years into the conflict, the strategy appears to be working, at least on paper. Some 69% of Ukrainians now say they are ready to settle for a negotiated end to the war, up sharply from just 22% in 2022. “This is exhausting for Ukrainians,” says Eurasia Group Russia expert Alex Brideau. “They are resisting, but it is taking a toll.”
Yet, with Vladimir Putin showing no signs of coming to the negotiating table, Ukrainians are simultaneously growing more resilient and resigned, adapting their lives to sustain the war effort. Many have purchased small generators to keep the lights on.
Ukraine's military isn't surrendering to the initiative either. Though far less frequent than the strikes they endure, Ukrainian forces have landed attacks deep inside Russia, targeting its energy infrastructure to bring the war home to ordinary Russians. “[This weekend’s] strikes have reinforced the imperative of fighting and winning,” says Podogoretskaya.
A chill across Europe. Ukraine’s energy crisis won’t remain contained within its borders. As the country’s ability for power generation collapses, it must turn to European neighbors for electricity and gas imports — a shift already reverberating through EU energy markets strained since Russia’s invasion.
The pressure is showing up in prices. German baseload electricity for January 2026 delivery has climbed nearly €10 per megawatt-hour in recent weeks, now exceeding €105/MWh and up from €94/MWh in November. Ukraine’s increased demand for imported power will continue pushing regional prices upward as winter deepens.
But the longer-term consequences may prove even more significant. Russia’s systematic destruction of Ukrainian energy infrastructure has poisoned any remaining prospects for cooperation. The idea of resuming Russian gas transit to Europe through Ukrainian pipelines – once a cornerstone of the continent’s energy supply – is now politically dead.
“Any transit arrangement would be viewed as rewarding Russia's deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure,” says Podogoretskaya. Ukrainian politicians, energy officials, and security experts are united in their opposition to serving as a conduit for Russian gas after watching their power sector and domestic production facilities reduced to rubble. This stance will shape European energy policy for years to come, cementing the EU’s pivot away from Russian energy dependence – even as the costs of that transition continue to mount.
US President Donald Trump welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House for bilateral discussions about trade and security on February 13, 2025.
After months of tensions between the world’s richest country and the world’s most populous one, it appears that the United States and India are on the verge of making a trade deal.
“We’re going to be bringing the tariffs down,” US President Donald Trump said during a swearing-in ceremony for the newly-minted US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor, while noting that India’s purchases of Russian oil have decreased. He didn’t give a timeframe, but added that the two sides were “pretty close” to a deal.
The inevitable question will be how much Trump lowers the tariff. The US president slapped a 25% levy on India in late July, in part because of Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil. When India refused to tell their companies to stop buying Russian crude, the tariff doubled to 50%.
“India’s oil purchases from Russia are on the downward trend,” Ashok Malik, partner and chair of The Asia Group’s India practice, told GZERO. “This creates a pathway for the removal of the 25% ‘oil tariff’ on India and, coinciding with Ambassador Sergio Gor’s arrival, steps towards the trade agreement.”
How did we even get here? Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi were two peas in a pod during the former’s first term in office. The two leaders believed in espousing strength and in a foreign policy that prioritized bilateral relationships over multilateral agreements. They both viewed radical Islam and China with skepticism. When they held a giant rally together in Houston in 2019 – labeled, “Howdy, Modi” – the pair held hands.
“India was central in terms of our Asian strategy… It was incredibly simpatico between the two leaders,” Matthew Bartlett, who served in the US State Department during Trump’s first term, told GZERO. “Now there’s a new, rather difficult dynamic – maybe dysfunction – to it, and you would hope that we would be able to put this back on track in short time.”
When Trump returned to office earlier this year, it appeared that the two would start where they left off. Modi visited the White House in February, and the two leaders exchanged effusive messages.
But the good times didn’t last. Six months ago, when India and Pakistan announced a ceasefire following a brief flare-up in Jammu and Kashmir, Islamabad credited the Trump administration for helping to foster the peace, whereas India said the White House wasn’t involved. The issue was exacerbated when Trump told Modi over the phone that he was proud of the role he played in fostering peace – the Indian leader rejected his counterpart’s account.
Then in July, the tariff war began. Months later, even as the US has struck deals with the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and its greatest rival China, it still hadn’t reached any sort of truce with India. Washington’s 50% levy on India is now larger than the 47% effective rate on China.
“The entire dialogue between India and the US reached a boiling point where it was just very tense in terms of relations,” said Bartlett. “I think even Modi dodged Trump on his last trip.”
Further, Trump announced last week that he would exempt Hungary from Russian oil sanctions. No such luxuries were afforded to India, the second-highest purchaser of Russian oil.
The duties have taken a toll: Indian goods exports to the US, its largest foreign market, are down 40% over the last few months. Smartphones and pharmaceuticals were hit especially hard – exports of the former plunged by 58% from May to June. In September, the country’s trade deficit reached its highest level in 13 months.
Then the season changed. Tensions started to ease during the fall, as Modi and Trump shared kind words on social media following a September phone call. Then India started to comply with the new sanctions on Russian crude – they won’t even come into place until Nov. 21. A deal now appears imminent.
While conversations are moving in the right direction again, Malik says the relationship isn’t yet back to the heady days of that famous Houston rally.
“Does this resolve all problems and clean up all the bad blood from the past few months? Likely not,” said Malik. “But that’s fodder for a considered assessment on another day.”
Pope Leo XIV presides over a mass at Saint John Lateran archbasilica in Vatican City on November 9, 2025.
It’s been six months since the Catholic Church elected its first American pope, Leo XIV. Since then, the Chicago-born pontiff has had sharp words for another high-profile US leader: President Donald Trump, most recently urging “deep reflection” on Trump’s treatment of migrants. Leo’s interventions have irked the White House – but could they also shape political opinion in America?
What has Leo said – and how has the White House responded? Shortly after his election as Pope, a series of tweets by Robert Prevost (Leo’s lay moniker) attacking Trump’s migration policies and the views of Vice President JD Vance went viral, prompting former Trump advisor Steve Bannon to call Leo the “worst pick for MAGA Catholics.” Vance, who converted to Catholicism at age 35, responded, “I try not to play the politicization of the Pope game.”
In October, Leo described Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s remarks to US generals that, “The only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting, preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit,” as “worrying.” He also questioned whether someone who is against abortion but “in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States” could be considered “pro-life.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, herself a Catholic, subsequently rejected the pope's claim that the Trump administration's treatment of migrants was inhumane.
On November 7, Leo criticized ICE for denying deportees their religious rights, including to take communion, and added that US military and enforcement actions could “fuel regional tension” in Latin America. In response, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted to X that, “Religious organizations have ALWAYS been welcome to provide services to detainees in ICE detention facilities.”
Continuity with Pope Francis. Leo’s predecessor was also a vocal critic of Trump. In February 2016, Francis criticized Trump’s plan for a border wall with Mexico, and in February 2025 penned a letter to Catholic bishops in the US stating that US deportations were damaging “the dignity of many men and women.”
How are Leo’s words being received by American Catholics? Reactions vary. Some American bishops and Catholic charities say Leo’s comments have emboldened their efforts to assist immigrants. But some conservative US Catholics are dismayed that the pope would challenge a president they see as a friend of their faith.
Leo is also seen as attempting to sway Catholic lawmakers. According to Catholic historian Austen Ivereigh, “When the Pope speaks very definitely like this, it does put pressure on the US administration – particularly those who identify as Catholics.”
Could Leo influence the Catholic and Hispanic vote in the US? In 2024, Trump got 55% of the Catholic vote; one in five Trump voters was a follower of the faith. He got 42% of the Hispanic vote, up from 28% in 2016 and 32% in 2020. However, in last week’s gubernatorial and mayoral elections, Latino districts went significantly Democrat, voting 68% for the Democratic candidate for governor in New Jersey and 67% in Virginia. Support is slipping due to anger at immigration crackdowns – the same issue taken up by Leo.
The extent to which the pope can influence voting patterns is unclear, but his views appear to align with many Hispanic Catholics, 65% of whom believed immigrants should have a pathway to citizenship, per a PRRI poll last year. If Trump continues to adopt a severe tone on immigration, he risks repelling a group of voters who had been shifting in his direction as the US heads into a midterm election year.