Secretary of State Marco Rubio is reportedly planning a trip to the Vatican and Italy this week, tasked with smoothing over a set of diplomatic friction points that have piled up between President Donald Trump, Pope Leo, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The visit comes days after the Pentagon announced a drawdown of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany, and after Trump openly floated doing the same in Italy.
The trip, first reported by Fox News Digital citing Reuters and Italian newspapers La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, would put Rubio at the center of three overlapping diplomatic challenges: a public feud between Trump and Pope Leo, strained ties with one of America's closest European allies, and a broader rethink of U.S. military commitments on the continent.
If the schedule holds, Rubio is expected to meet with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican's top diplomatic official, and to hold talks with Italy's foreign and defense ministers. Corriere della Sera reported that Rubio's schedule has not been finalized. La Repubblica reported that a meeting with Meloni herself has not been ruled out.
The backdrop for the trip sharpened on Friday, when the Pentagon formally announced the withdrawal of 5,000 American troops from Germany, the largest U.S. base presence in Europe. Speaking from the Oval Office the same day, Trump signaled Italy could face similar treatment.
"Why shouldn't I? Italy has not been of any help to us, and Spain has been horrible," Trump said.
He elaborated on his frustration with European allies who declined to assist with U.S. military operations related to Iran:
"I didn't need the help, but I said, 'Yeah, we'd love to have your help,' because I want to see if they'd do it. And they, in all cases, they said, 'We don't want to get involved.' And you know the amazing thing is they use the Strait of Hormuz, and we don't. We don't use it. We don't need it. We have a lot of oil."
The numbers tell the story of what's at stake. At the end of 2025, Italy hosted nearly 13,000 active-duty American troops across six bases, making it one of the largest hosts of U.S. forces in Europe. A drawdown there would send a far louder message than the German reduction, particularly to an ally that has tried, under Meloni, to position itself as Washington's most reliable partner on the continent.
Trump's willingness to publicly criticize Meloni marks a notable shift. The Italian prime minister had cultivated a warm relationship with the president, but her defense of Pope Leo and her stance on the Iran conflict appear to have tested that goodwill.
The other diplomatic fire Rubio must walk into involves Pope Leo, who has been openly critical of the Trump administration's approach to peacemaking in the Middle East and its hard-line immigration policies. The back-and-forth between the White House and the Vatican has been unusually personal.
Trump took to Truth Social to blast the pontiff in terms rarely seen in modern U.S.-Vatican relations. "Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy," he wrote in one post. In another, he added:
"Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It's hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church."
Those posts drew criticism from Christians across the political spectrum. The pope, for his part, has tried to calibrate his response. Last month, Pope Leo said, "I have no fear of the Trump administration," before adding, "I will not enter into debate."
The tension is real, but the Vatican has left the door open. Rubio, himself a Catholic, has a prior relationship with Pope Leo. In May 2025, Rubio and Vice President JD Vance attended the pope's inaugural Mass in St. Peter's Square. The following day, Rubio held a private meeting with Pope Leo in Vatican City.
Vance, who has been pulled from or absent at several scheduled appearances in recent months, joined Rubio for the Mass but has not been named as part of this week's planned trip.
The assignment itself says something about Rubio's position. Trump has praised his secretary of state in forceful terms. During his State of the Union address earlier this year, the president pointed to Rubio and said, "People like you." He later added, "You have done a great job, a great secretary of state. I think he'll go down as the best ever."
That kind of public endorsement matters in a White House where loyalty is the coin of the realm. Trump did joke after the Munich Security Conference that he might consider firing Rubio, but the remark was delivered in a context that reinforced rather than undermined Rubio's standing.
Sending the nation's top diplomat to handle both the Vatican and the Italian government in a single trip reflects a level of trust. These are not routine courtesy calls. Rubio will need to reassure Parolin that the United States takes the Holy See seriously as a diplomatic partner, while simultaneously delivering a message to Italian officials that Washington expects more from its NATO allies, or the troop presence could shrink.
Meanwhile, the vice president's own portfolio has centered on domestic priorities. Vance's anti-fraud task force has racked up early wins across multiple agencies, keeping him focused on the home front while Rubio handles the overseas pressure points.
The diplomatic landscape in Rome and Vatican City is layered. On one side, the Vatican wants to maintain its moral voice on immigration and war without being dragged into a political cage match with the world's most powerful government. On the other, Italy's government must balance its alliance with the United States against domestic political realities, including a population that broadly supports the pope and is wary of being treated as a junior partner.
For the Trump administration, the calculus is straightforward. Allies who want American troops on their soil and American security guarantees overhead need to show up when asked. The Strait of Hormuz argument Trump made Friday was not abstract. European economies depend on energy flows through that chokepoint far more than the United States does. If European allies won't contribute to securing it, the president's logic goes, why should American servicemembers stay?
That argument has force. But it also carries risk. Italy is not a hostile power. It is a treaty ally, a G7 member, and home to critical U.S. military infrastructure. A troop drawdown used as leverage rather than strategy could weaken the very alliance architecture that keeps American influence dominant in the Mediterranean.
Rubio's job is to thread that needle, to deliver the president's message without burning the relationship. His track record suggests he can. But the public nature of the feuds he's walking into, Trump's social media posts about the pope, his pointed criticism of Meloni, the Pentagon's Germany announcement, means the Italian and Vatican press will be watching every handshake and parsing every communiqué.
Security considerations around high-profile U.S. officials traveling abroad have also drawn fresh attention in Washington. Recent discussions about rethinking joint events involving senior administration figures underscore the logistical weight of these trips.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, State Department, Holy See press office, and the Italian government for comment. Several key details remain unresolved. Will Rubio meet directly with Pope Leo, or only with Parolin? Will Meloni sit down with the secretary of state, or keep the meetings at the ministerial level? And has the schedule been finalized at all?
Corriere della Sera reported that Rubio's itinerary remains in flux. That alone signals the sensitivity of the visit. When a trip is routine, the schedule is locked. When it's delicate, details stay fluid until the last moment.
The uncertainty around senior officials' attendance at high-profile events has become a recurring theme in this administration, driven as much by security concerns as by diplomatic strategy.
What's unfolding is a test of whether the Trump administration's confrontational style with allies produces results or just produces headlines. The Germany troop drawdown was a concrete action. The Italy threat is, for now, a warning shot. And the Vatican feud is a public-relations problem that has no military dimension but carries enormous weight with Catholic voters at home and Catholic institutions abroad.
Rubio is the right messenger. He speaks the language, literally and figuratively, of both Rome and the Vatican. He has the president's confidence. And he has a personal relationship with Pope Leo that predates the current friction.
But the question isn't whether Rubio can charm his hosts. It's whether the underlying disputes, over NATO burden-sharing, over the pope's public criticism of American policy, over Italy's refusal to back U.S. operations near the Strait of Hormuz, have answers that diplomacy can reach. Or whether the president has already decided that pressure, not persuasion, is the only tool that works.
Allies who want American protection should act like allies. That's not a radical proposition. It's common sense, and it shouldn't take a secretary of state flying across the Atlantic to remind them.
