BRUSSELS — The EU and U.K. must overcome historic gripes and “reset” their relationship to be able to work together in an increasingly uncertain world, the bloc’s top parliamentarian said. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola used an address to the Spanish senate on Tuesday to call for closer ties with the U.K. as London steps up efforts to secure smoother access to European markets and funding projects, after the country voted to leave the bloc in 2016. “Ten years on from Brexit … and in a world that has changed so profoundly, Europe and the U.K. need a new way of working together on trade, customs, research, mobility and on security and defense,” Metsola said. “Today it is time to exorcize the ghosts of the past.” Metsola called for a “reset” in the partnership between Britain and the EU as part of a policy of “realistic pragmatism anchored in values that will see all of us move forward together.” Her speech comes after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he intended to try and ensure his country’s defense industries can benefit from the EU’s flagship SAFE scheme — a €150 billion funding program designed to boost procurement of military hardware. That push has been far from smooth, with a meeting of EU governments on Monday night failing to sign off U.K. access to SAFE, despite France — which has consistently opposed non-EU countries taking part — supporting the British inclusion. Starmer has also signaled in recent days that he is seeking closer integration with the EU’s single market. Brussels has so far been reluctant to reopen the terms of the U.K.’s relations with the bloc just six years after it exited. While those decisions lie with the remaining 27 EU member countries, rather than the Parliament, Metsola’s intervention marks a shift in tone that could bolster the British case for closer relations. In the context of increasingly tense relations with the U.S., capitals are depending on cooperation with British intelligence and military capabilities and in key industries. Europe must take “the next steps towards a stronger European defense, boosting our capabilities and cooperation, and working closely with our NATO allies so that Europe can better protect its people,” Metsola said.

A federal judge has rejected a bid by state and local officials in Minnesota to end Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s massive deployment of thousands of federal agents to aggressively enforce immigration laws. In a ruling Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez found strong evidence that the ongoing federal operation “has had, and will likely continue to have, profound and even heartbreaking, consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans.” “There is evidence that ICE and CBP agents have engaged in racial profiling, excessive use of force, and other harmful actions,” Menendez said, adding that the operation has disrupted daily life for Minnesotans — harming school attendance, forcing police overtime work and straining emergency services. She also said there were signs the Trump administration was using the surge to force the state to change its immigration policies — pointing to a list of policy demands by Attorney General Pam Bondi and similar comments by White House immigration czar Tom Homan. But the Biden-appointed judge said state officials’ arguments that the state was being punished or unfairly treated by the federal government were insufficient to justify blocking the surge altogether. And in a 30-page opinion, the judge said she was “particularly reluctant to take a side in the debate about the purpose behind Operation Metro Surge.” The surge has involved about 3,000 federal officers, a size roughly triple that of the local police forces in Minneapolis and St. Paul. However, Menendez said it was difficult to assess how large or onerous a federal law enforcement presence could be before it amounted to an unconstitutional intrusion on state authority. “There is no clear way for the Court to determine at what point Defendants’ alleged unlawful actions … becomes (sic) so problematic that they amount to unconstitutional coercion and an infringement on Minnesota’s state sovereignty,” she wrote, later adding that there is “no precedent for a court to micromanage such decisions.” Menendez said her decision was strongly influenced by a federal appeals court’s ruling last week that blocked an order she issued reining in the tactics Homeland Security officials could use against peaceful protesters opposing the federal operation. She noted that the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted her order in that separate lawsuit even though it was much more limited than the sweeping relief the state and cities sought. “If that injunction went too far, then the one at issue here — halting the entire operation — certainly would,” the judge said in her Saturday ruling. Attorney General Pam Bondi on X called the decision “another HUGE” win for the Justice Department in its Minnesota crackdown and noted that it came from a judge appointed by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat. “Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote. Minneapolis has been rocked in recent weeks by the killings of two protesters by federal immigration enforcement, triggering public outcry and grief – and souring many Americans on the president’s deportation agenda. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have both called for federal agents to leave the city as the chaos has only intensified in recent weeks. “This federal occupation of Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Walz said at a press conference last week after two Customs and Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti. “It’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state. And today, that campaign claimed another life. I’ve seen the videos from several angles. And it’s sickening.” Backlash from Pretti’s killing has prompted Trump to pull back on elements of the Minneapolis operation. Two CBP agents involved in the shooting were placed on administrative leave. CBP Commander Greg Bovino was sidelined from his post in Minnesota, with the White House sending border czar Tom Homan to the state in an effort to calm tensions. Officials also said some federal agents involved in the surge were cycling out of state, but leaders were vague about whether the size of the overall operation was being scaled back. “I don’t think it’s a pullback,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “It’s a little bit of a change.”

President Donald Trump rose to power on his immigration agenda. Now, it’s threatening to box him in. After months of aggressive enforcement actions meant to telegraph strength on one of the Republican Party’s signature issues, the White House has had to backtrack in the face of Americans’ backlash to its approach — particularly after two protesters were killed by federal law enforcement agents in Minneapolis. But the calculus that forced the Trump administration to change course is a double-edged sword: If the administration appears to ease up on its maximalist stance against illegal immigration, it risks leaving its hardcore MAGA base disenchanted at a moment when Republicans can’t afford to lose support. And if it doesn’t, it risks alienating moderate Republicans, independents, young voters and Latinos who support the administration’s immigration enforcement in theory but dislike how it’s being executed. “I worry because if we lose the agenda, we’re done — and people don’t fully appreciate how big of an issue this is,” said Sean Spicer, Trump’s former press secretary. “When you have a two-seat majority in the House or a two- or three-seat majority in the Senate, you’re on a razor’s edge. To not acknowledge that is ridiculous.” For Trump, a midterms rout means the last two years of his administration will be eaten up by Democratic stonewalling, investigations and likely impeachment inquiries, rather than his own agenda — a situation the administration desperately wants to avoid. The result is a rare moment of vulnerability on Trump’s strongest issue, one that has exposed fault lines inside the Republican Party, sharpened Democratic attacks, and forced the White House into a defensive crouch it never expected to take. Some Trump allies insist the GOP shouldn’t be scared of their best issue, blaming Democrats for putting them on the back foot. “This has been President Trump’s area of greatest success,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin. “You’re looking at the Republicans be defensive on something they shouldn’t be defensive about.” A recent POLITICO poll underscores the administration’s delicate balancing act: 1 in 5 voters who backed the president in 2024 say Trump’s mass deportation campaign is too aggressive, and more than 1 in 3 Trump voters say that while they support the goals of his mass deportation campaign, they disapprove of the way he is implementing it. The administration this week struggled to manage the political fallout from demonstrator Alex Pretti’s killing, where even typically loyal Republicans criticized the president and others called for the ousting of his top officials, namely Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The White House softened its hardline rhetoric, and Trump shifted his personnel in charge of Minneapolis operations, sending border czar Tom Homan to the state to deescalate tensions on the ground. A subdued Homan told reporters Thursday that he had “productive” conversations with state and local Democrats and that federal agents’ operations would be more targeted moving forward. He vowed to stick by the administration’s mission, but said he hopes to reduce Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence in the city if federal officials get access to state jails. The president “doesn’t want to be dealing with clashes between protesters and federal agents on the ground in Minnesota,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “If Trump was more invested in the outcome of this, he would have sent in the National Guard. He would declare martial law. He would be more aggressive.” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson, in a statement, said that the administration is always looking for “the most effective way” to implement what it sees as a mandate from voters to carry out mass deportations. “Our focus remains the same: prioritizing violent criminal illegal aliens while also enforcing the law — anyone who is in the country illegally is eligible to be deported,” she said, adding that includes “the President’s continued calls for local Democrat leaders to work with the Administration to remove illegal murderers, rapists, and pedophiles from their communities.” Some Trump allies, fearful the aggressive tactics will isolate crucial swing voters in November, have argued that Republicans have to keep the focus on criminal arrests, public safety and the Trump administration’s success in securing the southern border, which are more popular with voters across the board. But immigration hawks in the Republican Party have grown increasingly apoplectic over the administration’s moves this week, including an apparent openness to compromise with Democrats on policies to boost the oversight of federal immigration officers. They argue the administration is paying too much attention to cable news coverage and donor anxiety and not enough to the voters who propelled Trump back into office. “The upshot of the lame duck second Trump term was supposed to be that he was going to get things done regardless of the pressure from consultants, pollsters and left-wing Republicans. That doesn’t seem to be happening and it’s disappointing,” said Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, a conservative group. “I’m dumbfounded that CNN coverage seems to have more influence over the White House’s immigration enforcement agenda than the base that stood by Trump through everything over the last decade.” Even so, some of the more hardline elements of the president’s base acknowledge that the splashy optics of the administration’s immigration enforcement actions have introduced a vulnerability. “The big muscular show of force — you invite too much confrontation,” said a second person close to the White House, also granted anonymity to speak candidly. “Let’s try to be quieter about it but deport just as many people. Be a little sneakier. Don’t have the flexing and the machismo part of it. There’s a certain element of that that’s cool but as much as we can, why can’t we be stealthy and pop up all over Minnesota?” “We were almost provoking the reaction,” the person added. “I’m all for the smartest tactics as long as the end result is as many deportations as possible.” But the person warned that any perception of backtracking could depress a base already uneasy about the economy. “Our base is generally not wealthy and they’re not doing well,” the person said. “They’re struggling. If you take away immigration — if they don’t believe he means it — holy cow, that’s not good.”

LONDON — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is braced for a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping — and there’ll be more than a few elephants in the room. Though Britain has improved its relationship with China following the more combative approach of previous Conservative administrations, a litany of concerns over national security and human rights continues to dog Labour’s attempted refresh. Starmer, who will meet the Chinese president in Beijing Thursday morning, told reporters engaging with China means he can discuss “issues where we disagree.”   “You know that in the past, on all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised,” he said during a huddle with journalists on the British Airways flight to China on Tuesday evening. In a sign of how hard it can be to engage on more tricky subjects, Chinese officials bundled the British press out of the room when Starmer tried to bring up undesirable topics the last time the pair met. From hacking and spying to China’s foreign policy aims, POLITICO has a handy guide to all the ways Starmer could rile up the Chinese president. 1) STATE-SPONSORED HACKING China is one of the biggest offenders in cyberspace and is regarded by the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) — part of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency — as a “highly sophisticated threat actor.” The Electoral Commission said it has taken three years to recover from a Chinese hack of its systems. The Chinese state, and private companies linked directly or obliquely to its cyber and espionage agencies, have been directly accused by the British government, its intelligence agencies and allies. As recently as last month, the U.K. government sanctioned two Chinese companies — both named by the U.S. as linked to Chinese intelligence — for hacking Britain and its allies. 2) ACTIONS AGAINST BRITISH PARLIAMENTARIANS Politicians in Britain who have spoken out against Chinese human rights abuses and hostile activity have been censured by Beijing in recent years. This includes the sanctioning of 5 British MPs in 2021, including the former security minister Tom Tugendhat, who has been banned from entering the country. Last year, Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse was refused entry to Hong Kong while attempting to visit her grandson, and was turned back by officials. The government said that the case was raised with Chinese authorities during a visit to China by Douglas Alexander, who was trade minister at the time. 3) JIMMY LAI In 2020, the British-Hong Kong businessman and democracy campaigner Jimmy Lai was arrested under national security laws imposed by Beijing and accused of colluding with a foreign state. Lai — who is in his late 70s — has remained in prison ever since. Last month, a Hong Kong court convicted Lai of three offenses following what his supporters decried as a 156-day show trial. He is currently awaiting the final decisions relating to sentencing — with bodies including the EU parliament warning that a life imprisonment could have severe consequences for Europe’s relationship with China if he is not released. Lai’s son last year called for the U.K. government to make his father’s release a precondition of closer relations with Beijing.  4) REPRESSION OF DISSIDENTS China, like Iran, is involved in the active monitoring and intimidation of those it considers dissidents on foreign soil — known as trans-national repression. China and Hong Kong law enforcement agencies have repeatedly issued arrest warrants for nationals living in Britain and other Western countries.  British police in 2022 were forced to investigate an assault on a protester outside the Chinese consulate in Manchester. The man was beaten by several men after being dragged inside the grounds of the diplomatic building during a demonstration against Xi Jinping. China removed six officials from Britain before they could be questioned. 5) CHINESE SPY SCANDALS Westminster was last year rocked by a major Chinese spying scandal involving two British men accused of monitoring British parliamentarians and passing information back to Beijing. Though the case against the two men collapsed, the MI5 intelligence agency still issued an alert to MPs, peers and their staff, warning Chinese intelligence officers were “attempting to recruit people with access to sensitive information about the British state.” It is not the only China spy allegation to embroil the upper echelons of British society. Yang Tengbo, who in 2024 outed himself as an alleged spy banned from entering the U.K., was a business associate of Andrew Windsor , the` disgraced brother of King Charles. Christine Lee, a lawyer who donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to a Labour MP, was the subject of a security alert from British intelligence. In October, Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, said that his officers had “intervened operationally” against China that month. 6) EMBASSY DING DONG This month — after a protracted political and planning battle — the government approved the construction of a Chinese “super-embassy” in London. This came after a litany of security concerns were raised by MPs and in the media, including the building’s proximity to sensitive cables, which it is alleged could be used to aid Chinese spying. Britain has its own embassy headache in China. Attempts to upgrade the U.K. mission in Beijing were reportedly blocked while China’s own London embassy plan was in limbo. 7) SANCTIONS EVASION China has long been accused of helping facilitate sanctions evasion for countries such as Russia and Iran. Opaque customs and trade arrangements have allegedly allowed prohibited shipments of oil and dual-use technology to flow into countries that are sanctioned by Britain and its allies. Britain has already sanctioned some Chinese companies accused of aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine. China has called for Britain to stop making “groundless accusations” about its involvement in Russia’s war efforts. 8) HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES AND GREEN ENERGY U.K. ministers are under pressure from MPs and human rights organizations to get tougher on China over reported human rights abuses in the country’s Xinjiang region — where many of the world’s solar components are sourced. In a meeting with China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang last March, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband raised the issue of forced labor in supply chains, according to a government readout of the meeting. But he also stressed the need for deeper collaboration with China as the U.K.’s lofty clean power goal looms. British academic Laura Murphy — who was researching the risk of forced labor in supply chains — had her work halted by Sheffield Hallam University amid claims of pressure from China. “I know that there are other researchers who don’t feel safe speaking out in public, who are experiencing similar things, although often more subtly,” Murphy said last year. 9) THE FUTURE OF TAIWAN China continues to assert that “Taiwan is a province of China” amid reports it is stepping up preparations for military intervention in the region. In October, the Telegraph newspaper published an op-ed from the Chinese ambassador to Britain, which said: “Taiwan has never been a country. There is but one China, and both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China.” In a sign of just how sensitive the matter is, Beijing officials reportedly threatened to cancel high-level trade talks between China and the U.K. after Alexander, then a trade minister, travelled to Taipei last June. 10) CHINA POOTLING AROUND THE ARCTIC Britain is pushing for greater European and NATO involvement in the Arctic amid concern that both China and Russia are becoming more active in the strategically important area. There is even more pressure to act, with U.S. President Donald Trump making clear his Greenland aspirations. In October, a Chinese container ship completed a pioneering journey through the Arctic to a U.K. port — halving the usual time it takes to transport electric cars and solar panels destined for Europe.

LONDON — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney left Beijing and promptly declared the U.S.-led “world order” broken. Don’t expect his British counterpart to do the same. Keir Starmer will land in the Chinese capital Wednesday for the first visit by a U.K. prime minister since 2018. By meeting President Xi Jinping, he will end what he has called an “ice age” under the previous Conservative administration, and try to win deals that he can sell to voters as a boost to Britain’s sputtering economy. Starmer is one of a queue of leaders flocking to the world’s second-largest economy, including France’s Emmanuel Macron in December and Germany’s Friedrich Merz next month. Like Carney did in Davos last week, the British PM has warned the world is the most unstable it has been for a generation. Yet unlike Carney, Starmer is desperate not to paint this as a rupture from the U.S. — and to avoid the criticism Trump unleashed on Carney in recent days over his dealings with China. The U.K. PM is trying to ride three horses at once, staying friendly — or at least engaging — with Washington D.C., Brussels and Beijing.  It is his “three-body problem,” joked a senior Westminster figure who has long worked on British-China relations. POLITICO spoke to 22 current and former officials, MPs, diplomats, industry figures and China experts, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak frankly. They painted a picture of a leader walking the same tightrope he always has surrounded by grim choices — from tricky post-Brexit negotiations with the EU, to Donald Trump taking potshots at British policies and freezing talks on a U.K.-U.S. tech deal. Starmer wants his (long-planned) visit to China to secure growth, but be cautious enough not to compromise national security or enrage Trump. He appears neither to have ramped up engagement with Beijing in response to Trump, nor reduced it amid criticism of China’s espionage and human rights record. In short, he doesn’t want any drama. “Starmer is more managerial. He wants to keep the U.K.’s relationships with big powers steady,” said one person familiar with planning for the trip. “You can’t really imagine him doing a Carney or a Macron and using the trip to set out a big geopolitical vision.” An official in 10 Downing Street added: “He’s clear that it is in the U.K.’s interests to have a relationship with the world’s second biggest economy. While the U.S. is our closest ally, he rejects the suggestion that means you can’t have pragmatic dealings with China.” He will be hoping Trump — whose own China visit is planned for April — sees it that way too. BRING OUT THE CAVALRY Starmer has one word in his mind for this trip — growth, which was just 0.1 percent in the three months to September. The prime minister will be flanked by executives from City giants HSBC, Standard Chartered, Schroders and the London Stock Exchange Group; pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca; car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover; energy provider Octopus; and Brompton, the folding bicycle manufacturer. The priority in Downing Street will be bringing back “a sellable headline,” said the person familiar with trip planning quoted above. The economy is the overwhelming focus. While officials discussed trying to secure a political win, such as China lifting sanctions it imposed on British parliamentarians in 2021, one U.K. official said they now believe this to be unlikely. Between them, five people familiar with the trip’s planning predicted a large number of deals, dialogues and memorandums of understanding — but largely in areas with the fewest national security concerns. These are likely to include joint work on medical, health and life sciences, cooperation on climate science, and work to highlight Mandarin language schemes, the people said.  Officials are also working on the mutual recognition of professional qualifications and visa-free travel for short stays, while firms have been pushing for more expansive banking and insurance licences for British companies operating in China. The U.K. is meanwhile likely to try to persuade Beijing to lower import tariffs on Scotch whisky, which doubled in February 2025. A former U.K. official who was involved in Britain’s last prime ministerial visit to China, by Theresa May in 2018, predicted all deals will already be “either 100 or 99 percent agreed, in the system, and No. 10 will already have a firm number in its head that it can announce.” THREADING THE NEEDLE Yet all five people agreed there is unlikely to be a deal on heavy energy infrastructure, including wind turbine technology, that could leave Britain vulnerable to China. The U.K. has still not decided whether to let Ming Yang, a Chinese firm, invest £1.5 billion in a wind farm off the coast of Scotland. And while Carney agreed to ease tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), three of the five people familiar with the trip’s planning said that any deep co-operation on EV technology is likely to be off the table. One of them predicted: “This won’t be another Canada moment. I don’t see us opening the floodgates on EVs.” Britain is trying to stick to “amber and green areas” for any deals, said the first person familiar with the planning. The second of the five people said: “I think they‘re going for the soft, slightly lovey stuff.” Britain has good reason to be reluctant, as Chinese-affiliated groups have long been accused of hacking and espionage, including against MPs and Britain’s Electoral Commission. Westminster was gripped by headlines in December about a collapsed case against two men who had been accused of spying for China. Chinese firm Huawei was banned from helping build the U.K.’s 5G phone network in 2020 after pressure from Trump. Even now, Britain’s security agencies are working on mitigations to telecommunications cables near the Tower of London. They pass close to the boundary of China’s proposed embassy, which won planning approval last week. Andrew Small, director of the Asia Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank working on foreign and security policy, said: “The current debate about how to ‘safely’ increase China’s role in U.K. green energy supplies — especially through wind power — has serious echoes of 5G all over again, and is a bigger concern on the U.S. side than the embassy decision.”  Starmer and his team also “don’t want to antagonize the Americans” ahead of Trump’s own visit in April, said the third of the five people familiar with trip planning. “They’re on eggshells … if they announce a new dialogue on United Nations policy or whatever bullshit they can come up with, any of those could be interpreted as a broadside to the Trump administration.” All these factors mean Starmer’s path to a “win” is narrow. Tahlia Peterson, a fellow working on China at Chatham House, the international affairs think tank, said: “Starmer isn’t going to ‘reset’ the relationship in one visit or unlock large-scale Chinese investment into Britain’s core infrastructure.” Small said foreign firms are being squeezed out of the Chinese market and Xi is “weaponizing” the dependency on Chinese supply chains. He added: “Beijing will likely offer extremely minor concessions in areas such as financial services, [amounting to] no more than a rounding error in economic scale.” Chancellor Rachel Reeves knows the pain of this. Britain’s top finance minister was mocked when she returned with just £600 million of agreements from her visit to China a year ago. One former Tory minister said the figure was a “deliberate insult” by China. Even once the big win is in the bag, there is the danger of it falling apart on arrival. Carney announced Canada and China would expand visa-free travel, only for Beijing’s ambassador to Ottawa to say that the move was not yet official. Despite this, businesses have been keen on Starmer’s re-engagement.  Rain Newton-Smith, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, said firms are concerned about the dependence on Chinese rare earths but added: “If you map supply chains from anywhere, the idea that you can decouple from China is impossible. It’s about how that trade can be facilitated in the best way.” EMBASSY ROW Even if Starmer gets his wins, this visit will bring controversies that (critics say) show the asymmetry in Britain’s relationship with China. A tale of two embassies serves as a good metaphor.  Britain finally approved plans last week for China’s new outpost in London, despite a long row over national security. China held off formally confirming Starmer’s visit until the London embassy decision was finalized, the first person familiar with planning for the trip said. (Others point out Starmer would not want to go until the issue was resolved.) The result was a scramble in which executives were only formally invited a week before take-off. And Britain has not yet received approval to renovate its own embassy in Beijing. Officials privately refer to the building as “falling down,” while one person who has visited said construction materials were piled up against walls. It is “crumbling,” added another U.K. official: “The walls have got cracks on them, the wallpaper’s peeling off, it’s got damp patches.” British officials refused to give any impression of a “quid pro quo” for the two projects under the U.K.’s semi-judicial planning system. But that means much of Whitehall still does not know if Britain’s embassy revamp in Beijing will be approved, or held back until China’s project in London undergoes a further review in the courts. U.K. officials are privately pressing their Chinese counterparts to give the green light. One of the people keenest on a breakthrough will be Britain’s new ambassador to Beijing Peter Wilson, a career diplomat described by people who have met him as “outstanding,” “super smart” and “very friendly.”  For Wilson, hosting Starmer will be one of his trickiest jobs yet. The everyday precautions when doing business in China have made preparations for this trip more intense. Government officials and corporate executives are bringing secure devices and will have been briefed on the risk of eavesdropping and honeytraps. One member of Theresa May’s 2018 delegation to China recalled opening the door of what they thought was their vehicle, only to see several people with headsets on, listening carefully and typing. They compared it to a scene in a spy film. Activists and MPs will put Starmer under pressure to raise human rights issues — including what campaigners say is a genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang province — on a trip governed by strict protocol where one stray word can derail a deal.  Pro-democracy publisher Jimmy Lai, who has British nationality, is facing sentencing in Hong Kong imminently for national security offenses. During the PM’s last meeting with Xi in 2024, Chinese officials bundled British journalists out of the room when he raised the case. Campaigners had thought Lai’s sentencing could take place this week. All these factors mean tension in the British state — which has faced a tussle between “securocrats” and departments pushing for growth — has been high ahead of the trip. Government comments on China are workshopped carefully before publication. Earlier this month, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper told POLITICO her work on Beijing involves looking at “transnational repression” and “espionage threats.” But when Chancellor Rachel Reeves met China’s Finance Minister He Lifeng in Davos last week to tee up Starmer’s visit, the U.K. Treasury did not publicize the meeting — beyond a little-noticed photo on its Flickr account. SLOW BOAT TO CHINA Whatever the controversies, Labour’s China stance has been steadily taking shape since before Starmer took office in 2024. Labour drew inspiration from its sister party in Australia and the U.S. Democrats, both of which had regular meetings with Beijing. Party aides argued that after a brief “golden era” under Conservative PM David Cameron, Britain engaged less with China than with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The result of Labour’s thinking was the policy of “three Cs” — “challenge, compete, and cooperate.” A procession of visits to Beijing followed, most notably Reeves last year, culminating in Starmer’s trip. His National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell was involved in planning across much of 2025, even travelling to meet China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in November. Starmer teed up this week’s visit with a December speech arguing the “binary” view of China had persisted for too long. He promised to engage with Beijing carefully while taking a “more transactional approach to pretty well everything.”  The result was that this visit has long been locked in; just as Labour aides argue the London embassy decision was set in train in 2018, when the Tory government gave diplomatic consent for the site. Labour ministers “just want to normalize” the fact of dealing with China, said the senior Westminster figure quoted above. Newton-Smith added: “I think the view is that the government’s engagement with eyes wide open is the right strategy. And under the previous government, we did lose out.” But for each person who praises the re-engagement, there are others who say it has left Britain vulnerable while begging for scraps at China’s table. Hawks argue the hard details behind the “three Cs” were long nebulous, while Labour’s long-awaited “audit” of U.K.-China relations was delayed before being folded briefly into a wider security document. “Every single bad decision now can be traced back to the first six months,” argued the third person familiar with planning quoted above. “They were absolutely ill-prepared and made a series of decisions that have boxed them into a corner.” They added: “The government lacks the killer instinct to deal with China. It’s not in their DNA.” Luke de Pulford, a human rights campaigner and director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, argued the Tories had engaged with China — Foreign Secretary James Cleverly visited in 2023 — and Labour was simply going much further. “China is pursuing an enterprise to reshape the global order in its own image, and to that end, to change our institutions and way of life to the extent that they’re an obstacle to it,” he said. “That’s what they’re up to — and we keep falling for it.” END OF THE OLD ORDER? His language may be less dramatic, but Starmer’s visit to China does have some parallels with Canada. Carney’s trip was the first by a Canadian PM since 2017, and he and Xi agreed a “new strategic partnership.” Later at Davos, the Canadian PM talked of “the end of a pleasant fiction” and warned multilateral institutions such as the United Nations are under threat. One British industry figure who attended Davos said of Carney’s speech: “It was great. Everyone was talking about it. Someone said to me that was the best and most poignant speech they’d ever seen at the World Economic Forum. That may be a little overblown, but I guess most of the speeches at the WEF are quite dull.” The language used by Starmer, a former human rights lawyer devoted to multilateralism, has not been totally dissimilar. Britain could no longer “look only to international institutions to uphold our values and interests,” he said in December. “We must do it ourselves through deals and alliances.” But while some in the U.K. government privately agree with Carney’s point, the real difference is the two men’s approach to Trump. Starmer will temper his messaging carefully to avoid upsetting either his Chinese hosts or the U.S., even as Trump throws semi-regular rocks at Britain. To Peterson, this is unavoidable. “China, the U.S. and the EU are likely to continue to dominate global economic growth for the foreseeable future,” she said. “Starmer’s choice is not whether to engage, but how.” Esther Webber contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — European governments have reached a difficult conclusion: The Americans are the baddies now. As leaders of the EU’s 27 countries assemble in Brussels for an emergency summit Thursday, that assessment is predominant across almost all capitals in Europe, according to nine EU diplomats. These officials come from countries which have varying degrees of historic fondness of the U.S., and they made clear that this way of thinking is particularly stark in places that have previously had the strongest ties to Washington. The sense of dread and skepticism remains, and the summit will still go ahead, despite Donald Trump declaring late Wednesday that he’s struck a deal on Greenland and won’t impose tariffs on European countries after all — underscoring how the gathering has become more than just about the latest blowup. The U.S. president’s designs on Greenland, which he set out earlier in the day in Davos, Switzerland, demanding “immediate negotiations” to obtain the island, have come as a last straw for many leaders. Throughout the first year of his second term, they had clung to the hope that their worst fears about the country that has underpinned European security since 1945 wouldn’t be realized. But the moment for making nice “has ended” and “the time has come to stand up against Trump,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former NATO secretary-general and ex-Danish prime minister, told BBC radio. Several of the envoys that POLITICO spoke to for this article, all of whom were granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of their work, said they felt personally betrayed, some having studied and worked in the U.S. or having advocated for closer transatlantic ties. “Our American Dream is dead,” said an EU diplomat from a country that has been among the bloc’s transatlantic champions. “Donald Trump murdered it.” Europe’s collective realization is likely to be in evidence at the summit ― not merely in potential decisions to prepare for retaliatory trade measures against the U.S., should Trump reverse course again and push ahead with his claims on Greenland. It will also be apparent in the statements leaders are likely to make to each other in private and then publicly. French President Emmanuel Macron foreshadowed that in his own speech in Davos, saying Europe had “very strong tools” and “we have to use them when we are not respected, and when the rules of the game are not respected.” LIMITED RELIEF Trump’s speech at Davos, during which he called Denmark’s self-governing island “our territory,” did nothing to dial down the temperature 24 hours before the leaders’ hastily arranged gathering in the Belgian capital to discuss their next response to the disintegrating postwar order. While Trump ruled out the use of military force to seize Greenland, EU governments didn’t regard this as a climbdown because of the harshness of his language about Europe in general and clear confirmation of his intentions, according to two EU diplomats. Trump did eventually walk back his threat of issuing tariffs on the eight European countries which he considered to be standing in his way on Greenland, but by that point, things were already too far gone. “Our American Dream is dead,” said an EU diplomat from a country that has been among the bloc’s transatlantic champions. “Donald Trump murdered it.” | Mandel Ngan/Getty Images “After the back and forth of the last few days, we should now wait and see what substantive agreements are reached between [NATO Secretary-General] Mr. Rutte and Mr. Trump,” Germany’s Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil told German broadcaster ZDF. “No matter what solution is now found for Greenland, everyone must understand that we cannot sit back, relax, and be satisfied.” The moment the U.S. president threatened those tariffs on Saturday was when the schism “became real,” said an EU diplomat. “Maybe this push gets us a few months, maybe it’s a more permanent thing,” said another, referring to Trump’s about-face. “I think [Trump’s] speech earlier today will give food for thought in most if not all capitals, tariffs or not.” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen summed up the mood during her Davos speech Tuesday. “The world has changed permanently,” she said. “We need to change with it.” At their summit, EU leaders will discuss the state of the transatlantic relationship. Prior to Trump’s tariff climbdown, they were preparing to ask the Commission to ready its most powerful trade weapon against the U.S., the Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI), as POLITICO reported on Tuesday. The EU created its “trade bazooka” in 2023 to deal with the threat posed by what it perceived as hostile countries, most notably China, which it feared were using their markets and their economies to blackmail the EU into doing their bidding. The idea that Brussels would deploy it against the U.S. had previously been unthinkable. “We are experiencing a great rupture of the world order,” said a senior envoy from a country that was seen in the EU as a key American ally. Leaders will discuss “de-risking” from the U.S., the diplomat said — a term that has previously been reserved for the EU’s relationship with Beijing. “Trust is lost,” they said. THE THERAPY SUMMIT The summit will be akin to “therapy,” said one EU official familiar with the preparation for the European Council. It will provide an opportunity for the leaders to issue a concrete response to Trump’s Davos speech and subsequent claim of a deal. The assessment that the U.S. is no longer a reliable ally has come gradually. The scales first fell from Europe’s leaders’ eyes when the Trump administration published its National Security Strategy in early December, in which it vowed to boost “patriotic European parties” to the detriment of the EU. (Which may go some way to explaining why some EU leaders, like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, are still clinging to Trump.) Then, Trump renewed his rhetoric about taking Greenland, the U.S. ambassador to Iceland called himself the governor of the 52nd U.S. state, and Trump sent a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, in which he said that his failure to be awarded the Nobel Peace meant he would “no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”  One senior EU envoy said they were convinced the letter was a fake. Its authenticity was then confirmed. Two senior diplomats POLITICO spoke with separately compared the current state of the U.S. with the time leading up to World War II. “I think we are past Munich now,” said one, referring to a 1938 meeting where Britain, France and Italy appeased Adolf Hitler by allowing him to annex Czechoslovakia. “We realize that appeasement is not the right policy anymore.” The abrupt decline of U.S. standing has been particularly painful for Denmark, which Trump called “ungrateful” in Davos. Copenhagen has been shocked by his behavior, having for decades been among America’s most friendly allies. Denmark deployed forces in support of the U.S. to some of the most dangerous combat zones in the Middle East, including Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The country suffered among the worst per-capita losses of life. “So many of us have studied in the U.S., we all wanted to work there,” said one Danish official. “This is simply betrayal.” Gabriel Gavin, Nicholas Vinocur, Tim Ross and Nette Nöstlinger contributed reporting.

BRUSSELS — The trade war is back. Donald Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on European countries over Greenland has blown up last year’s transatlantic trade truce and forced the EU into a familiar dilemma: hit back hard, or try to buy time.  On paper, Brussels has options. It could target politically sensitive U.S. exports like Republican-state soybeans. Or it could unleash its trade “bazooka,” the Anti-Coercion Instrument. Here are the actions that EU leaders can consider when they gather for an emergency summit on Thursday: HITTING BACK AGAINST U.S. PRODUCTS Retaliatory tariffs on €93 billion worth of U.S. goods are still sitting in the EU’s pantry. These date back to Trump’s first round of tariffs last year and were frozen for six months in August. This package will automatically kick into force on Feb. 7 unless the Commission proposes to extend the freeze and the 27 EU countries agree with that. Such a suspension can happen very quickly, however, as the Commission typically sounds out support from capitals several times a week. Part of the package targets distinctively American products like Levi’s jeans, Harley Davidson motorcycles and Kentucky bourbon. Other goods would be targeted because they originate in states that lean towards the Republican side of the spectrum. A tariff on soy beans, for instance, would target the red state of Louisiana from which House Speaker Mike Johnson hails. DEPLOYING THE TRADE “BAZOOKA” The biggest weapon in the EU’s arsenal is its Anti-Coercion Instrument. This all-purpose tool is meant to deter other countries from using trade tactics to extort concessions in other areas. With it, Brussels can impose or increase customs duties, restrict exports or imports through quotas or licenses, and impose restrictions on trade in services. It also can curb access to public procurement, foreign direct investment, intellectual property rights and access to the bloc’s financial markets.  But in a case like this, it would take a few months to first clear diplomatic hurdles between the Commission and the Trump administration. Because it has never been triggered before, the EU is in uncharted waters. That is especially true for the dynamics between the Commission and national capitals. Brussels needs to propose launching the mechanism, and would only do so if it knows enough capitals will agree. France is keen, but Germany and other countries? Not so much. Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images “It’s one of the cards,” but “it’s really not the first in the line that you use,” Lithuanian Finance Minister Kristupas Vaitiekūnas told POLITICO in an interview. PLAYING THE CHINA CARD Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did something unprecedented last Friday. Turning the page on the acrimonious relationship between Canada and China born out of the arrest of a high-profile Huawei executive, the Canadian leader struck a preliminary trade deal with Beijing to liberalize imports of Chinese electric vehicles in exchange for a steep reduction in tariffs on Canadian agricultural goods. Carney didn’t mention Trump by name, but the message was clear: Canada has other partners, and it won’t sit quietly while Washington tries to strong-arm it.   A blueprint for Brussels? It’s not that simple. While the EU has tried to thread the needle on its trade relations with Beijing — the Asian country remains its second-largest trading partner  — policymakers are keenly aware of the competitive threat posed by China, Inc. Germany’s automotive industry is reeling from high energy prices and fierce competition from China (now the world’s top automotive exporter). In general, overcapacity — the term for China’s dizzying output of products that, unable to be absorbed by its domestic market, are sold abroad — keeps EU business leaders up at night. Compared with Canada, for the EU China is a “whole different can of worms,” said trade expert David Kleimann. “The Chinese are outcompeting us on all of our main exports and domestic production,” he said. “We will need more barriers, more managed trade with China.”  AN ASSET FIRESALE America’s enormous debt pile is one Achilles heel. The U.S. loves to spend, and Europeans, in turn, snap up that debt. George Saravelos, head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank, said that European public and private sector entities hold a combined total of $8 trillion of U.S. stocks and debt — “twice as much as the rest of the world combined.”  “In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the western alliance is being disrupted existentially, it is not clear why Europeans would be as willing to play this part,” the analyst wrote in a note to clients. If European governments order their banks and pension funds to dump their holdings, that would almost certainly spark a financial crisis, sending America’s borrowing costs soaring. The ensuing financial Armageddon would engulf Europe as well, though. The firesale of financial assets would crush prices, and European lenders would book huge losses — the financial equivalent of nuclear mutually assured destruction.  Increasing decoupling from the U.S. financial system looks likely, but a violent wholesale break is extremely unlikely.  PLAYING FOR TIME Restraint is the EU’s weapon of choice for now. “The priority here is to engage, not escalate, and avoid the imposition of tariffs,” Olof Gill, deputy chief spokesperson for the European Commission, said on Monday. Under their trade deal struck last year, the United States has already lowered tariffs on most EU products to 15 percent, while the EU has yet to make good on its pledge to cut its tariffs on U.S. industrial goods to zero. That’s because Trump’s threats have derailed a vote in the European Parliament on lowering tariffs for U.S. products. While this stalemate lasts, EU companies actually benefit from lower costs while the reverse is not true for their American counterparts. “Trade continues to flow, investment continues to flow,” Gill added. “So we need to be very sensible in how we approach the difference between a threat and operational reality.” With Trump trying to drive a wedge between European leaders by threatening tariffs against some countries, including France and Germany, while sparing others, like Italy, maintaining cohesion will be a huge challenge. Any serious retaliation, such as wielding the bloc’s trade “bazooka,” the Anti-Coercion Instrument, would require very broad support. WHAT COMES NEXT The U.S. Supreme Court might rule on some of Trump’s tariffs as soon as Tuesday. If the administration loses the case, Trump would have to deal with the fallout while he’s attending this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos.  “On a purely economic warfare basis, that would play in our favor,” said Kleimann. “But we haven’t considered Trump’s ambitions to actually put boots on the ground.” At Davos, Trump might meet with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, although no bilateral is yet confirmed. Von der Leyen will speak at Davos on Tuesday; Trump is due to arrive the day after.  Then on Thursday, EU government leaders hold an emergency summit in Brussels to discuss transatlantic relations and the latest tariff threats. The meeting is not expected to create a glitzy attack plan but rather to sound out whether the EU should indeed target the U.S. goods or maybe shoulder its trade bazooka. By Feb. 1, the U.S. tariffs on the European allies would kick in, if Trump follows through on his threats. A week later, the EU’s retaliation package automatically kicks in if no solution is found. If that happens, we really will be in a trade war.

A clash between Poland’s right-wing president and its centrist ruling coalition over the European Union’s flagship social media law is putting the country further at risk of multimillion euro fines from Brussels. President Karol Nawrocki is holding up a bill that would implement the EU’s Digital Services Act, a tech law that allows regulators to police how social media firms moderate content. Nawrocki, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said in a statement that the law would “give control of content on the internet to officials subordinate to the government, not to independent courts.” The government coalition led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Nawrocki’s rival, warned this further exposed them to the risk of EU fines as high as €9.5 million. Deputy Digital Minister Dariusz Standerski said in a TV interview that, “since the president decided to veto this law, I’m assuming he is also willing to have these costs [of a potential fine] charged to the budget of the President’s Office.” Nawrocki’s refusal to sign the bill brings back bad memories of Warsaw’s years-long clash with Brussels over the rule of law, a conflict that began when Nawrocki’s Law and Justice party rose to power in 2015 and started reforming the country’s courts and regulators. The EU imposed €320 million in penalties on Poland from 2021-2023. Warsaw was already in a fight with the Commission over its slow implementation of the tech rulebook since 2024, when the EU executive put Poland on notice for delaying the law’s implementation and for not designating a responsible authority. In May last year Brussels took Warsaw to court over the issue. If the EU imposes new fines over the rollout of digital rules, it would “reignite debates reminiscent of the rule-of-law mechanism and frozen funds disputes,” said Jakub Szymik, founder of Warsaw-based non-profit watchdog group CEE Digital Democracy Watch. Failure to implement the tech law could in the long run even lead to fines and penalties accruing over time, as happened when Warsaw refused to reform its courts during the earlier rule of law crisis. The European Commission said in a statement that it “will not comment on national legislative procedures.” It added that “implementing the [Digital Services Act] into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights.” “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland” for its “failure to designate and empower” a responsible authority, the statement said. Under the tech platforms law, countries were supposed to designate a national authority to oversee the rules by February 2024. Poland is the only EU country that hasn’t moved to at least formally agree on which regulator that should be. The European Commission is the chief regulator for a group of very large online platforms, including Elon Musk’s X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Google’s YouTube, Chinese-owned TikTok and Shein and others. But national governments have the power to enforce the law on smaller platforms and certify third parties for dispute resolution, among other things. National laws allow users to exercise their rights to appeal to online platforms and challenge decisions. When blocking the bill last Friday, Nawrocki said a new version could be ready within two months. But that was “very unlikely … given that work on the current version has been ongoing for nearly two years and no concrete alternative has been presented” by the president, said Szymik, the NGO official. The Digital Services Act has become a flashpoint in the political fight between Brussels and Washington over how to police online platforms. The EU imposed its first-ever fine under the law on X in December, prompting the U.S. administration to sanction former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and four other Europeans. Nawrocki last week likened the law to “the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” a criticism that echoed claims by Trump and his top MAGA officials that the law censored conservatives and right-wingers. Bartosz Brzeziński contributed reporting.

WARSAW — Poland’s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki on Friday sided with his ally U.S. President Donald Trump to veto legislation on enforcing the EU’s social media law, which is hated by the American administration. Trump and his top MAGA officials condemn the EU’s Digital Services Act — which seeks to force big platforms like Elon Musk’s X, Facebook, Instagram to moderate content — as a form of “Orwellian” censorship against conservative and right-wingers. The presidential veto stops national regulators in Warsaw from implementing the DSA and sets Nawrocki up for a a clash with centrist pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Tusk’s parliamentary majority passed the legislation introducing the DSA in Poland. Nawrocki argued that while the bill’s stated aim of protecting citizens — particularly minors — was legitimate, the Polish bill would grant excessive power to government officials over online content, resulting in “administrative censorship.”  “I want this to be stated clearly: a situation in which what is allowed on the internet is decided by an official subordinate to the government resembles the construction of the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s novel 1984,” Nawrocki said in a statement — echoing the U.S.’s stance on the law. Nawrocki also warned that allowing authorities to decide what constitutes truth or disinformation would erode freedom of expression “step by step.” He called for a revised draft that would protect children while ensuring that disputes over online speech are settled by independent courts. Deputy Prime Minister and Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski dismissed Nawrocki’s position, accusing the president of undermining online safety and siding with digital platforms.  “The president has vetoed online safety,” Gawkowski told a press briefing Friday afternoon, arguing the law would have protected children from predators, families from disinformation and users from opaque algorithms.  The minister also rejected Nawrocki’s Orwellian comparisons, saying the bill explicitly relied on ordinary courts rather than officials to rule on online content. Gawkowski said Poland is now among the few EU countries without national legislation enabling effective enforcement of the DSA and pledged that the government would continue to pursue new rules. The clash comes as enforcement of the social media law has become a flashpoint in EU-U.S. relations.  Brussels has already fined Elon Musk’s X €120 million for breaching the law, prompting a furious response from Washington, including travel bans imposed by the Trump administration on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, an architect of the tech law, and four disinformation experts. The DSA allows fines of up to 6 percent of a company’s global revenue and, as a measure of last resort, temporary bans on platforms. Earlier this week, the European Commission expanded its investigation into X’s AI service Grok after it started posting a wave of non-consensual sexualized pictures of people in response to X users’ requests. The European Commission’s digital spokesperson Thomas Regnier said the EU executive would not comment on national legislative procedures. “Implementing the DSA into national law is essential to allow users in Poland to benefit from the same DSA rights, such as challenging platforms if their content is deleted or their account suspended,” he said. “This is why we have an ongoing infringement procedure against Poland. We have referred Poland to the Court of Justice of the EU for failure to designate and empower the Digital Services Coordinator,” in May 2025, Regnier added. Gawkowski said that the government would make a quick decision on what to do next with the vetoed bill but declined to offer specifics on what a new bill would look like were it to be submitted to parliament again. Tusk four-party coalition does not have enough votes in parliament to override Nawrocki’s vetoes. That has created a political deadlock over key legislation efforts by the government, which stands for reelection next year. Nawrocki, meanwhile, is aiming to help the Law and Justice (PiS) political party he’s aligned with to retake power after losing to Tusk in 2023. Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

The first American pope is on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump. The latest fault line between the Vatican and the White House emerged on Sunday. Shortly after Trump suggested his administration could “run” Venezuela, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of the “country’s sovereignty.” For MAGA-aligned conservatives, this is now part of an unwelcome pattern. While Leo is less combative in tone toward Trump than his predecessor Francis, his priorities are rekindling familiar battles in the culture war with the U.S. administration on topics such as immigration and deportations, LGBTQ+ rights and climate change. As the leader of a global community of 1.4 billion Catholics, Leo has a rare position of influence to challenge Trump’s policies, and the U.S. president has to tread with uncustomary caution in confronting him. Trump traditionally relishes blasting his critics with invective but has been unusually restrained in response to Leo’s criticism, in part because he counts a large number of Catholics among his core electorate. “[Leo] is not looking for a fight like Francis, who sometimes enjoyed a fight,” said Chris White, author of “Pope Leo XIV: Inside the Conclave and the Dawn of a New Papacy.” “But while different in style, he is clearly a continuation of Francis in substance. Initially there was a wait-and-see approach, but for many MAGA Catholics, Leo challenges core beliefs.” In recent months, migration has become the main combat zone between the liberal pope and U.S. conservatives. Leo called on his senior clergy to speak out on the need to protect vulnerable migrants, and U.S. bishops denounced the “dehumanizing rhetoric and violence” leveled at people targeted by Trump’s deportation policies. Leo later went public with an appeal that migrants in the U.S. be treated “humanely” and “with dignity.” Leo’s support emboldened Florida bishops to call for a Christmas reprieve from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. “Don’t be the Grinch that stole Christmas,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. As if evidence were needed of America’s polarization on this topic, however, the Department of Homeland Security described their arrests as a “Christmas gift to Americans.” Leo also conspicuously removed Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Trump’s preferred candidate for pope and a favorite on the conservative Fox News channel, from a key post as archbishop of New York, replacing him with a bishop known for pro-migrant views. This cuts to the heart of the moral dilemma for a divided U.S. Catholic community. For Trump, Catholics are hardly a sideshow as they constitute 22 percent of his electorate, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. While the pope appeals to liberal causes, however, many MAGA Catholics take a far stricter line on topics such as migration, sexuality and climate change. To his critics from the conservative Catholic MAGA camp, such as Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon, the pope is anathema. U.S.-born Pope Leo XIV appeared at the Angelus window overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver an address calling for the safeguarding of Venezuela’s “sovereignty.” | Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Last year the pope blessed a chunk of ice from Greenland and criticized political leaders who ignore climate change. He said supporters of the death penalty could not credibly claim to be pro-life, and argued that Christians and Muslims could be friends. He has also signaled a more tolerant posture toward LGBTQ+ Catholics, permitting an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage to St Peter’s Basilica. Small wonder, then, that Trump confidante and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer branded Leo the “woke Marxist pope.” Trump-aligned Catholic conservatives have denounced him as “secularist,” “globalist” and even “apostate.” Far-right pundit Jack Posobiec has called him “anti-Trump.” “Some popes are a blessing. Some popes are a penance,” Posobiec wrote on X. PONTIFF FROM CHICAGO There were early hopes that Leo might build bridges with U.S. hardliners. He’s an American, after all: He wears an Apple watch and follows baseball, and American Catholics can hardly dismiss him as as foreign. The Argentine Francis, by contrast, was often portrayed by critics as anti-American and shaped by the politics of poorer nations. Leo can’t be waved away so easily. Early in his papacy, Leo also showed signs he was keen to steady the church after years of internal conflict, and threw some bones to conservatives such as allowing a Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and wearing more ornate papal vestments. But the traditionalists were not reassured. Benjamin Harnwell, the Vatican correspondent for the MAGA-aligned War Room podcast, said conservatives were immediately skeptical of Leo. “From day one, we have been telling our base to be wary: Do not be deceived,” he said. Leo, Harnwell added, is “fully signed up to Francis’ agenda … but [is] more strategic and intelligent.” After the conclave that appointed Leo, former Trump strategist Bannon told POLITICO that Leo’s election was “the worst choice for MAGA Catholics” and “an anti-Trump vote by the globalists of the Curia.” Trump had a long-running feud with Francis, who condemned the U.S. president’s border wall and criticized his migration policies. Francis appeared to enjoy that sparring, but Leo is a very different character. More retiring by nature, he shies away from confrontation. But his resolve in defending what he sees as non-negotiable moral principles, particularly the protection of the weak, is increasingly colliding with the core assumptions of Trumpism. Trump loomed large during the conclave, with an AI-generated video depicting himself as pope. The gesture was seen by some Vatican insiders as a “mafia-style” warning to elect someone who would not criticize him, Vatican-watcher Elisabetta Piqué wrote in a new book “The Election of Pope Leo XIV: The Last Surprise of Pope Francis.” NOT PERSONAL Leo was not chosen expressly as an anti-Trump figure, according to a Vatican official. Rather, his nationality was likely seen by some cardinals as “reassuring,” suggesting he would be accountable and transparent in governance and finances. But while Leo does not seem to be actively seeking a confrontation with Trump, the world views of the two men seem incompatible. “He will avoid personalizing,” said the same Vatican official. “He will state church teaching, not in reaction to Trump, but as things he would say anyway.” Despite the attacks on Leo from his allies, Trump himself has also appeared wary of a direct showdown. When asked about the pope in a POLITICO interview, Trump was more keen to discuss meeting the pontiff’s brother in Florida, whom he described as “serious MAGA.” When pressed on whether he would meet the pope himself, he finally replied: “Sure, I will. Why not?” The potential for conflict will come into sharper focus as Leo hosts a summit called an extraordinary consistory this week, the first of its kind since 2014, which is expected to provide a blueprint for the future direction of the church. His first publication on social issues, such as inequality and migration, is also expected in the next few months. “He will use [the summit] to talk about what he sees as the future,” said a diplomat posted to the Vatican. “It will give his collaborators a sense of where he is going. He could use it as a sounding board, or ask them to suggest solutions.” It’s safe to assume Leo won’t be unveiling a MAGA-aligned agenda. The ultimate balance of power may also favor the pope. Trump must contend with elections and political clocks; Leo, elected for life, does not. At 70, and as a tennis player in good health, Leo appears positioned to shape Catholic politics well after Trump’s moment has passed. “He is not in a hurry,” the Vatican official said. “Time is on his side.”