ROME — Secretary of State Marco Rubio presented a more diplomatic side of the Trump administration in meetings this week with Italy’s premier and the leader of the Catholic Church. But he offered no promises that the amity would last.
As Rubio told reporters Friday afternoon, as he prepared to depart the Italian capital, President Donald Trump may well continue his harsh public criticisms of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni or Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pontiff, if they do not align with his views on Iran and other issues.
“The president will always speak clearly about how he feels about the U.S. and U.S. policy,” Rubio said when asked by reporters here if he would advise Trump to limit his verbal attacks, adding that “the president of the United States is always going to act on what’s in the best interest of the United States.”
The remarks were a dose of hard realism as the secretary closed out a trip portrayed by the State Department in warm, collegial terms — and widely viewed in Italian media as an attempt by Washington to mend ties after Trump in recent weeks branded both Meloni and Leo as weak after they distanced themselves from his war on Iran.
Rubio, a practicing Catholic, had brought his wife to Thursday’s meeting at the Vatican, along with several longtime staffers and Sergio Gor, Trump’s ambassador to India and a personal friend of the secretary’s.
Rubio gifted Leo a crystal football engraved with the State Department’s logo, while the pope gave the secretary a pen made from an olive branch, which he noted was “the plant of peace.”
Meloni on Friday presented Rubio with a more unusual gift: proof of his family’s Italian origins. Rubio received the documentation at Italy’s Foreign Ministry under the supervision of Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. The honor, Italian officials said, was recognition of Rubio’s family history tied to Piedmont in the country’s northwest.
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to brief the news media, said that the document did not confer Italian citizenship either honorary or legal.
In a ceremony, Tajani, Piedmont Region President Alberto Cirio and the mayor of Casal Monferrato, Emanuele Capra, presented Rubio with “the family tree of his Italian origins and documents from the research they conducted in the municipal and church archives” that certified his Italian family history, the State Department official said. Rubio also received gifts from Piedmont.
In brief remarks, Rubio said it was a “true honor” to receive the documentation and said that visiting Piedmont would be “one more reason to be back” in Italy. Rubio added that he would give a speech in Italian next time he is in the country.
“I need to learn a third language,” said Rubio. Italian would be “by far the easiest one,” he said, as he already speaks Spanish.
Meloni, a member of Italy’s political right, had been seen as a rare European leader who could maintain close ties to Trump, but the political and economic fallout from the war against Iran and Trump’s criticism of Pope Leo prompted her to distance herself from the U.S. administration.
Trump has announced plans to withdraw some U.S. troops from Germany in the next year and suggested he could do the same in Italy and Spain. This week he also repeated his threat to raise tariffs on European-made cars, a favorite cudgel.
Meloni and other Italian officials, including Tajani, had stepped up in support of Leo after Trump repeatedly attacked the Chicago-born leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, claiming this week that the pontiff’s foreign policy views were “endangering Catholics and a lot of people.”
Rubio projected a different tone than the president and others, including Vice President JD Vance, who also is Catholic, telling reporters Friday that the Chicago-born Leo is a “spiritual leader, first and foremost,” and noting the role he plays connecting with Christian communities in places like Africa.
Rubio pointed to the direct U.S.-Vatican role in Cuba, where American humanitarian assistance is distributed by a Catholic organization. He said that $6 million in aid was distributed last year after the island was hit by Hurricane Melissa and that Cuban authorities had rebuffed a proposal by the administration to send $100 million to the island, which is currently under a U.S. energy embargo.
On other issues, Rubio declined to offer details. He did not directly respond when asked about any discussions about U.S. troop withdrawals from Italy, stating that he had not discussed any “specifics” with Meloni. “That’s a decision for the president to make,” Rubio said.
The top U.S. diplomat also said that the Trump administration was waiting for a response from Tehran that he hoped would “put us into a serious process of negotiation” to end the conflict with Iran.
Asked if he had managed to bridge differences on Iran with Meloni and the pope, Rubio said he wasn’t sure but emphasized that he believed everyone agreed Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.
“The president’s perspective is clear,” Rubio added. “He thinks that Iran is a threat and it needs to be addressed.”
The post Rubio charms in Rome, but he says Trump’s verbal attacks may continue appeared first on Washington Post.
