The pope and the president offer competing Americanisms

An odd couple of two Americans, each powerful in his own way, throws into relief the ambiguous, portentous and often tortuous relationship between the United States and the world. Whose vision will win?

One is President Donald Trump. The other is Pope Leo XIV, born in Chicago as Robert Francis Prevost, the first American citizen in two millennia to be supreme pontiff of Rome. Each seems like a perfect foil for the other.

One reveres and liberally wields lethal force as commander of the world’s mightiest military. The other commands scads of soft power but none of the hard kind, save about 135 Swiss Guards whose halberds, photogenic as they may be, are unlikely to topple regimes in Venezuela, Iran or anywhere.

The American gilding the Oval Office is loud and brash in speech and manner and craves prizes, fealty and adulation. The one in the Vatican is discreet to the point of self-effacing, save for the trappings of the Holy See.

One invokes Christianity for political ends, whether dog-whistling to the Christian Nationalists in his MAGA coalition or bombing Nigeria in the name of protecting Christians. The other recoils at citing religion in vain or using it to divide rather than unite human beings; he requests that "the religious freedom and worship of Christians be fully respected [while] the Holy See asks the same for all other religious communities."

The politician elides Christian doctrine by vilifying, persecuting and dehumanizing migrants. The shepherd of his flock insists that "every migrant is a person and, as such, has inalienable rights that must be respected in every situation."

One calls himself a "peacemaker" and unsubtly lobbies for a Nobel Prize to make the label official, even as he bombs or bullies countries from (so far) the Americas to the Middle East and Africa. The other, expounding on Augustine, reminds diplomats everywhere how hypocritical and wrong it is that "peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion."

One defies, ignores or disdains the rule of law at home and abroad. "I don’t need international law," Trump told the New York Times, because "the only thing that can stop me" is "my own morality, my own mind."

The other decries the trend toward international anarchy that "gravely threatens the rule of law, which is the foundation of all peaceful civil coexistence." He draws "particular attention to the importance of international humanitarian law," which is meant, among other things, to protect civilians in war, whether they happen to be in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan or Myanmar — or on boats in the Caribbean.

Leo XIV said all of these things last week as he addressed the diplomats accredited to the Holy See. He spoke just after Trump ordered an attack on Venezuela to capture its president, as another American strike on Iran began looking likely and as a U.S. assault on Danish Greenland, unimaginable as that used to sound, became a White House meme.

As is his wont, the pope didn’t call out Trump (or any leader) by name. But in his understated way, he left little doubt that he was presenting an alternative geopolitical and moral vision to the president’s worldview of nationalism and might-makes-right.

"The weakness of multilateralism is a particular cause for concern at the international level," the pontiff said, directly countering the unilateralism at the heart of MAGA. In the name of America First, the president had in the same week ordered the U.S. to withdraw from 66 international organizations, after already boycotting, undermining or quitting others and impugning the whole United Nations system.

Leo XIV, for his part, put up a spirited (and spiritual) defense of the U.N.: Born 80 years ago from the "ashes" of World War II, it was created "as the center of multilateral cooperation in order to prevent future global catastrophes, for safeguarding peace, defending fundamental human rights and promoting sustainable development." Created, he didn’t need to add, thanks to American leadership, and in ways that gave the U.S. a privileged place in this international system.

Anybody who attacks this system and its principles, the pope went on, wants to replace "a diplomacy that promotes dialogue" with "a diplomacy based on force." As it happens, the White House agrees — and, as one of Trump’s top aides gleefully made explicit, is all in for force.

To Leo XIV this trend spells tragedy, because "war is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading." Until recently, the culprits would have included autocrats such as Russian President Vladimir Putin. Today, the pope seems to count the American president among them.

In their own ways, Trump from New York and Prevost from Chicago represent American attitudes toward the world. The former has married foreign-born wives and branded overseas golf courses and hotel towers in his name but has remained provincial rather than becoming worldly. The latter spent years as a missionary and teacher in Peru before leading the global Augustinian order from Rome: In his heart and soul, he is universalist, which happens to be a synonym for Catholic.

America often distrusts such cosmopolitanism in its citizens. That explains, for example, why the U.S. punishes its expats and others with foreign connections with uniquely onerous tax and compliance burdens. (Rather than reduce those burdens, one congressman now wants to pass a law exempting just the pope.)

At the same time, American exceptionalism has always had a universalist strand. Two ideas stretch through the nation’s foreign policy since its founding: America as a beacon, which shines its light brightly but stays aloof from the world, or as a crusader, which ventures forth to improve the world, with all the unintended consequences that has entailed. A role as global bully, though, has been the exception, and will not suit this nation for long.

In this contest of visions, I am rooting for the American leader in the Vatican. His odds are good: MAGA can hardly dismiss him as a woke/DEI/antifa leftie. In time, this papal voice of humanity’s better angels will resonate ever more broadly as the jingoism of this White House becomes more shrill. It’s good — for the U.S. and the world — that it also happens to have an American accent.

This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.