Trump’s economic and geopolitical failures took center stage at Pope Francis’ funeral

The funeral of His Holiness Pope Francis on Saturday inside St. Peter’s Basilica turned into a full public reckoning for US President Donald Trump, whose failures at home and abroad unfolded in real time for the world to see, according to Bloomberg.

As thousands packed St. Peter’s Square, cheers erupted not for Trump, but for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Inside, Trump stood surrounded by France’s Emmanuel Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer, all caught up in tense conversations that had nothing to do with honoring the late pope.

During the homily, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re delivered a sharp reminder of the Church’s position on immigration, praising Francis’ legacy for advocating refugees and recalling his famous call to “build bridges, not walls.”

Those words first came back in 2016 when Trump was just kicking off his campaign by pushing for a wall along the US-Mexico border. Cameras zoomed in on Trump, catching his mouth slightly open as Re’s message landed hard.

Francis spent years rebuking Trump’s immigration and foreign policies, including his public stances on Ukraine and Gaza. He was a very special person indeed.

Trump’s meetings with leaders expose his growing isolation

By seating chart luck, based on the French alphabet, Trump landed between the leaders of Estonia and Finland, two nations that back Ukraine heavily. But the first row spot still reflected his status as the sitting US President.

Before the Mass even began, an unofficial meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy caught the world’s attention. It was their first face-to-face since a disastrous February Oval Office meeting where Zelenskyy had been scolded on live TV, leading him to lose an economic deal for Ukraine’s rare earth minerals.

Macron and Starmer, who had flown into Washington to fix that geopolitical mess, found themselves doing damage control again inside the Basilica. They stood with Trump and Zelenskyy in a tense huddle as cameras rolled.

Dozens of world leaders showed up for the funeral, but most eyes stayed on Trump, watching to see who he would greet and who he would avoid since he’s quite literally fighting everyone right now. Joe Biden and Jill Biden, sitting about four rows behind, shared no words with Trump.

Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, who had recently paid Trump a visit at the White House, kept her distance too. Giorgia is a staunch Catholic and was a close ally of Francis, so it’s not hard to understand why she skipped the diplomatic drama and later had lunch with Argentina’s infamous President Javier Milei, who once called Francis a “filthy leftist” before publicly making amends.

The funeral also exposed how rare it is to have this many world leaders crammed under one dome. Given Trump’s open hatred for multilateral meetings and the uncertainty of his attendance at the upcoming G7 summit in Canada along with his ongoing trade beefs, this funeral was an awkward chance to rub shoulders with people he often prefers to avoid.

Still, Trump openly acknowledged the situation reporters had been whispering about. “It’s a little disrespectful to have meetings when you’re at the funeral of a pope, they say,” Trump told reporters while flying into Rome. “But I’ll be talking to people, I’ll be seeing a lot of people.”

Trump fumbles fast diplomacy as rivals take the stage

As Europe continued to suffer under tariff wars fueled by Trump’s trade policies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saw her shot. 

She managed a few moments of small talk with Trump at the funeral, the first time they met since his return to office. An EU spokesperson allegedly later confirmed to Bloomberg that they agreed to schedule formal talks.

But time wasn’t on Trump’s side. His meeting window slammed shut fast. There was no second sit-down with Zelenskyy, with a spokesperson blaming “tight schedules.” 

Trump’s motorcade peeled away from the Vatican soon after the ceremony ended, racing back to the airport and clearing Rome before lunchtime. On the ground, Zelenskyy stayed to meet separately with Starmer and Meloni, securing longer talks without the US President involved.

From the air, Trump jumped onto Truth Social to share his thoughts about Russia and Ukraine. He accused Vlad Putin of stalling peace by firing missiles into civilian areas and suggested that “Secondary Sanctions” might soon be necessary.

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