Middle East and North Africa

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where we can finally report that Team SitRep has 100 percent canine representation. Rishi brought home a mini-goldendoodle named Luka, who joins John’s pup Indy and our editor Jenn’s Bootsie as valuable if chaotic members of the crew.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump’s fight-filled week, a grim milestone in Sudan, and still more Latin America boat strikes.

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Situation Report, where we can finally report that Team SitRep has 100 percent canine representation. Rishi brought home a mini-goldendoodle named Luka, who joins John’s pup Indy and our editor Jenn’s Bootsie as valuable if chaotic members of the crew.

Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump’s fight-filled week, a grim milestone in Sudan, and still more Latin America boat strikes.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s political career has been typified by chaos and controversy. But even by Trump’s standards, the past week has been especially messy. Facing mounting pressure to end the war in Iran, the president’s behavior has become increasingly erratic as his administration struggles to find an off-ramp—and he’s alienating supporters at home and allies abroad in the process.

He’s been picking fights in virtually every direction in recent days, including with Pope Leo XIV, who has criticized U.S. military adventurism in Venezuela and the Iran war. Politically, Trump has far more to lose than gain by going after the pope, particularly with midterm elections on the horizon. Pope Leo is originally from Chicago and is quite popular among the roughly 53 million Catholics in the United States. But this has not stopped Trump from lobbing the kinds of attacks at the religious leader that he typically reserves for Democratic mayors and governors, such as accusing the pope of being “weak on crime.”

The president’s war of words with the pope, who leads the roughly 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, has led to criticism across the globe and in the United States—including from some of the president’s supporters. Trump rejected a call from Bishop Robert Barron, who serves on the president’s Religious Liberty Commission, to apologize. The situation has placed U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, who is a Catholic convert, in a particularly awkward position—though he’s chosen to side with Trump so far.

The president added to the backlash he’s facing among American Christians by posting an AI image depicting himself as Jesus Christ to Truth Social. Trump said the image (which he ultimately deleted) was meant to portray him as a doctor, but it appears that few people, if any, are buying that.

Meanwhile, top U.S. allies seem fed up with Trump for reasons ranging from his ceaseless criticism of NATO, which has ramped up as alliance members refuse to get directly involved in the Iran war, to his fight with the pope.

Trump is now in the midst of a falling out with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is Catholic, for attacking Pope Leo. Meloni, a far-right leader seen as one of Trump’s ideological allies in Europe, said the president’s comments were “unacceptable.” Trump fired back, stating that Meloni is “the one who’s unacceptable” and criticizing her for not supporting the Iran war. In a sign of how........

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