Marco Rubio to visit Rome, reportedly to ‘thaw’ US relations with Pope and Meloni | US foreign policy
US secretary of state Marco Rubio will travel to Rome this week on a visit aimed at thawing frozen relations with the Italian government and the Vatican.
Rubio is scheduled to be in Italy’s capital on Thursday and Friday, which will also mark the first anniversary of the papacy of Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born pontiff.
A foreign ministry source confirmed that Rubio will travel to Rome and meet with the Vatican’s foreign minister, Pietro Parolin, and Italy’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Antonio Tajani. The source added that Rubio wanted to meet with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but the request has not yet been accepted.
According to reports Corriere della SeraRubio’s trip was announced in a letter to the Italian government from the US ambassador to Rome, Tilman Fertitta. The daily newspaper said Fertitta had been working to rebuild the “bridge” between the two countries in the weeks since Donald Trump’s unprecedented lashing out at Leo over the Pope’s condemnation of the US-Israeli war on Iran and the subsequent deterioration of relations with Rome.
Trump previously criticized his government for not supporting attacks on Iran after Meloni, one of his closest allies in Europe, made remarks against Leo and threatened to withdraw US troops from Italy as a result.
Corriere reported that Rubio’s visit was aimed at “thawing” frozen relations with both Rome and the Vatican, a task described by the daily as “not impossible but complex.”
The newspaper said Rubio will meet with Parolin on Thursday and Tajani on Friday. The minister will also reportedly meet with defense minister Guido Crosetto, although a foreign ministry source said no official appointment has been planned yet.
The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, the Pentagon announced it would withdraw 5,000 troops from Germany in response to the country’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, saying the United States was “humiliated” by Iran. Trump suggested that this number could increase. A senior Pentagon official said Germany’s recent rhetoric was “inappropriate and unhelpful” and that “the president was responding justifiedly to these counterproductive statements.”
A day earlier, Trump had threatened to do the same to Italy and Spain. While Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez opposed the US-Israeli war against Iran from the beginning, Rome carried out a balancing act by the end of March by rejecting the use of an air base in Sicily by US planes carrying weapons for the war.
Crosetto said on Friday that he did not understand Trump’s intentions in threatening to withdraw US troops from Italy and rejected accusations that Rome was not helping the US, especially with maritime security.
Rubio and US vice president JD Vance attended Pope Leo’s inauguration in May last year and had a private meeting with the pope the next day, during which they gave him an invitation from Trump to the White House, which Leo has yet to accept.
In response to Trump’s outburst in April, the pope said he was not afraid of the U.S. administration and continued to speak out against the war on Iran and others.
