Less than 10 days till President Donald Trump’s higher “reciprocal” tariffs kick back in for most of the world, the U.S. looks like it may emerge with just a handful of trade deals.

The President shocked the world and roiled markets on April 2, which he dubbed “Liberation Day,” when he imposed tariffs of as high as 50% on nearly every country, before announcing a 90-day reduction in a stunning reversal just a week later. That pause, however, is ending July 9, and Trump said in a Sunday interview on Fox News, taped Friday, that he doesn’t intend to extend the deadline—although, he added, “I could, no big deal.”

On Friday, Trump said he could do “whatever we want” with the deadline. “I’d like to make it shorter. I’d like to just send letters out to everybody, ‘Congratulations, you’re paying 25%,’” he told reporters. 

Trump’s unpredictable style has earned him the descriptor “TACO” for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” while businesses, economists, and investors have criticized him for creating a volatile business environment. The President and his officials have countered that the uncertainty is all part of a master strategy to achieve better deals.

But the level of trade success Trump will have achieved by next week looks to fall short of his goals. Trump’s trade adviser Peter Navarro touted “90 deals in 90 days” in April. As the deadline approaches though, others in the Administration are lowering expectations.

“We’re going to do top 10 deals, put them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Bloomberg Television last week.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent echoed Lutnick on Fox Business on Friday: “If we can ink 10 or 12 of the important 18—there are another important 20 relationships—then I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day [Sept. 1].” For other “smaller trading partners, we will just send them letters,” Bessent said on CNBC.

Trade talks run into issues

Japan was one of the first countries to begin trade negotiations with the U.S. after the pause was announced, but talks have been troubled by disagreements over Japan’s policies protecting domestic rice.

“To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won’t take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday. (Japan imports 770,000 metric tons of rice every year without any tariffs, around half of which comes from the U.S.) “In other words, we’ll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come.”

The “letters” that Trump likes to reference will notify countries of what rate their goods will be tariffed at, which Trump said on Fox News would mark “the end of the trade deal.”

With some trading partners, Trump’s strong-arm style has won him immediate concessions. Trump railed against Canada on Friday, announcing that he was ending trade talks over its proposed digital services tax, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our Country.” On Sunday, Ottawa said it was abandoning the tax policy to resume negotiations with Washington in the hopes that it can reach a deal with the U.S. by July 21. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Canada “caved.”

Similarly, the European Union on Monday reportedly yielded to a 10% levy on many of its exports, as it pushes for lower rates on specific key sectors and exemptions to higher tariffs on automobiles as well as steel and aluminum.

But Trump’s hardball tactics could also sour important U.S. trade relationships, and in the long term push countries to seek alternative trading partners. The E.U., alongside its negotiations with the U.S., is preparing countermeasures to tariff U.S. goods and has stepped up discussions with China around their trade relationship in recent months.

Jayant Menon, a research fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, previously told TIME that countries will look to diversify their trade and engage with “more reliable” trading partners. And many have already begun, said Kristina Fong, an economic affairs researcher at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, especially in terms of increasing trade with China. “It’s a very slow burn kind of momentum, but that’s always been, I think, the underlying case,” Fong told TIME.

Moreover, “smaller trading partners” that haven’t even gotten a seat at the negotiating table are likely to be hit hardest. Trump’s apparent dismissal of these countries, similar to his decision to shutter USAID, suggests that he doesn’t see the benefits of having positive relations with them.

Many of them were already hit with some of the highest “reciprocal” tariffs when they were initially announced, and many aren’t in a position to simply purchase more American goods. Lesotho, which was hit with the highest 50% rate, was pessimistic at the outset of the pause, with the country’s trade and industry minister saying, “I don’t have a good experience with trying to get meetings with [the Trump Administration].”

“We’ll look at how a country treats us—are they good, are they not so good? Some countries we don’t care, we’ll just send a high number out,” Trump said on Fox News. “Congratulations, we’re allowing you to shop in the United States of America. You’re going to pay a 25% tariff or 35% or 50% or 10%.”

“What does this do long term to trust and confidence [in the U.S.]?” says Mark Cogan, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Japan’s Kansai Gaidai University, tells TIME. “You’re bullying your way to get what you want, and that reduces trust. To a certain extent, parties will assume eventually that they cannot negotiate with the United States because perhaps the United States is not negotiating in good faith.”

China says its interests must be safeguarded

Countries seeking quick and favorable deals with the U.S. also face a balancing act with China. 

China has attempted to position itself as a reliable and stable partner, in contrast with Trump’s erratic style, and to strengthen its relations with other countries. Trump’s tariffs “were accelerating a trend of Chinese businesses looking more and more overseas,” William Figueroa, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Groningen, previously told TIME.

China, which signed an agreement with the U.S. in May that temporarily lowered both nations’ levies on each other after an escalating tariff war, has warned that countries should not reach deals with the U.S. at the expense of China’s interests.

China is on a separate timeline for negotiating with the U.S., with its 90-day pause beginning May 14, though the two countries have already reached a limited deal.

“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal for so-called tariff reductions at the expense of China’s interests. If that happens, China would never accept it and would take resolute countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday.

“China is happy to see all parties resolve trade disputes with the US through equal consultations,” the statement added. “At the same time, we call on them to stand on the side of fairness and justice and firmly defend international and multilateral trade rules.”

Xu Weijun, a researcher with the Institute of Public Policy at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou, told SCMP that Beijing, which has repeatedly called Trump’s tariffs “unilateral bullying,” is watching Trump’s trade talks with caution.

“Trump is an emotionally driven leader with a history of flip-flopping. Beijing knows too well it must prepare for him reneging on commitments or using deals with other countries to extract concessions [from China],” Xu told SCMP.

But, Xu cautioned: “If Trump believes the U.S. is losing in a deal or thinks attacking China and stoking nationalist sentiment serves his domestic political agenda, he could easily overturn existing consensus and even scrap signed agreements.”

Deals may still fall short of expectations

Trump has boasted about his deals with the U.K. and China, but critics say these agreements are not substantive or fail to address some of Trump’s key concerns.

Trade experts suggest that other deals may end up similarly appearing more like broad frameworks with many details left to be worked out later.

Tim Meyer, a professor at Duke University law school who specializes in international trade, told Bloomberg: “I would expect the White House will announce some number of frameworks that it’s going to call trade deals, but do not meet anyone’s ordinary understanding of that term.”

“I’m ticked,” says John Prevost, the retired Midwestern high school principal who is now, abruptly and without warning, globally famous and in demand. “I didn’t want to be, but I’m so angry.” He’s sitting at the table of Denise and Rob Utter, who have invited a bunch of people from their local Catholic parish, about 45 minutes south of Chicago, to talk about their friend and John’s kid brother Bob, whom they have known for decades, over pizza. Sometimes they call him Father Bob. Occasionally they remember to call him by his new name, Pope Leo XIV, but it’s unfamiliar to their tongue. One of the guests accidentally calls him Pope Pius.

It’s probably not all fun and games to be the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion people from very different cultures at a time when the Catholic Church is recovering from multiple scandals, riven from within, financially ensnarled, and, especially in the so-called developed nations, wrestling with a growing disinterest in the stuff it does best—ancient ritual, obligatory gathering, biblical exegesis. But it’s also a teensy bit of a drag to be his brother. 

Pope Leo XIV, 69, is the person to whom lots of people look when they want to come in contact with God. John Prevost, 71, is the person to whom they look when they want to reach the Pope. His mailbox is inundated. A local accounting firm sent him a 30-page pitch deck on how it would sort out the Vatican’s finances. Another opportunist sent him two baseballs, asking for them to be forwarded to His Holiness, newly anointed as the world’s most famous White Sox fan. “Dear Mr. Prevost, please have your brother sign these baseballs,” the accompanying letter said, according to its recipient. “You can keep one and run a fundraiser.” His mail carrier is sympathetic, advising him to hire someone to handle the paper blizzard. 

It’s not just mail. His phone (a landline) rings well into the night. One recent warm day, Prevost was watering his yard when he noticed people at his front door. It was congregants from a now shuttered church in Chicago, St. Adalbert’s. “They had a two-page letter to send to the Pope in the hopes that he will convince the Cardinal to reopen the church—and they were not going to give up,” he says. Even Hollywood is getting in on the act. Prevost has already had a showbiz publicist offer to represent him, and a journalist stop by post-interview to give him tips on what is imprudent to say on live TV—such as his imminent travel plans.

Prevost’s travails are one of the many ripple effects of May 8, 2025, when the conclave made several types of history by handing the papal keys to a recently appointed American Cardinal. Robert Francis Prevost is not only the first Augustinian, the first modern missionary, and the first devotee of Peeps and Hostess Snoballs to occupy the Throne of St. Peter, he’s also the first leader from a land where opportunism and entrepreneurship are admired only slightly less than the triune God. America is not used to having a local guy as the driving force of an institution with four times as much history and an even greater capacity to inspire fear and awe. But a deep dive into Pope Leo’s education and background shows that either by divine intervention, wise choices, luck, or all three, his path made him uniquely prepared for steering through the choppy waters facing the ancient denomination he now leads.

As recently as three months ago, it was a truth universally acknowledged that there was not going to be a Pope from the U.S. anytime soon. The Americans were too dominant elsewhere, too loud, too confident, too greedy, too obsessed with individual liberties. They venerated the new and the shiny, preferring novel and homegrown faiths to the traditions of Europe or Asia. They were more concerned with LGBTQ rights and the ordination of women than the plight of the poor and dispossessed. 

But if ever there were going to be an American Pope, people could have predicted he’d come from the Midwest. “He’s Midwestern nice,” says Father Paul Galetto, the pastor of St. Paul church in Philadelphia, of the fellow Augustinian he has known since his 20s. “He listens to you. He’s pleasant. He’s not going to jump in the middle of your conversation, tell you you’re wrong. That’s a great advantage for him.”

Even the much prevailed-upon John Prevost can’t stay ticked for long. A few evenings before our dinner party, someone left a package at his doorstep. It was a Wordle cap. (He plays Wordle with his Vatican-based brother every day; he in English, the Pope in Italian.) “And then here comes the card: ‘Dear John, in a world where there are so many evil people right now, you are a breath of fresh air, thank you,’” says Prevost. “‘We so appreciate your sense of humor and your kind words.’ And that changed my attitude. People are watching me, so I’d better not be crabby.”

It was clear from very early on where the youngest of Mildred and Louis Prevost’s three sons was heading. “The only thing that was in question until eighth grade was, would it be an order priest, or would it be a diocesan priest?” says John. (The former belongs to a brotherhood, while the latter serves a church.) “Nothing was forced on him. That was his decision to make.” The family were eager Catholics: his mother, a school librarian, sang in the choir, as did young Robert. They had relatives who were nuns. Before he became a high school principal and district superintendent, Louis, who served in the Navy during World War II, had considered being a priest. His sons’ career choices mirrored their father’s: Louis, the oldest, named after his dad, went into the Navy. John was a principal of Catholic high schools. And Robert took the path his father might have taken.

Apart from his devotion to the church, and the fact that study came easily to him, Robert was a regular kid, riding his bike around the streets of the south Chicago working-class suburb of Dolton by day, playing flashlight tag by night, and occasionally squeezing the glowing goo out of fireflies and wiping it on an older brother. It didn’t seem odd that he occasionally set up a pretend Communion table on the ironing board and gave his family play sacraments. John confirms that even while very young, Robert had a reputation among the neighbors, with one elderly lady telling him as they played in the yard that he’d be Pope one day. 

When young men showed an inclination toward entering the priesthood in 1967 Chicago—a city that was Catholic enough that locals identified themselves by their parish rather than their neighborhood—they’d be visited by representatives of the various orders, football-scout style, to see where they might fit in. “I remember sitting around a table each time someone was coming, and they would come, and then everyone would ask questions,” says John Prevost. “We had to sit there and be nice.” The vocational director who persuaded eighth-grade Robert to give the Augustinians a spin was Dudley Day, a Catholic of the old school, whose views were conservative enough that he later parted ways with his local church over a disagreement about modernization.

St. Augustine, the minor seminary in Holland, Mich., where Robert Prevost completed his secondary education, was the kind of place that sorted the priests from the merely pious. About 50 boys were accepted every year, and about a dozen graduated four years later. “It was tough; it was rigorous,” says Father Becket Franks, who was the year below the future Pope at school. Students were up at 6 a.m. and had scheduled activities until about 8:30 p.m., when they had a few hours of free time before retiring to a large dormitory lined with beds. There were three Masses a day and a lot of time in close quarters together. 

Prevost, who was co-valedictorian and yearbook editor among other accolades, had a reputation for being a good person to turn to for help with homework, especially math or languages. “He was the smartest person I think we ever met,” says Franks, who is now a Benedictine monk and chaplain. “He had mastered French by the middle of high school.” Students were required to undertake certain extracurricular activities (Prevost was in the choir with Franks—both sing tenor—and played tennis) and to keep up their academic performance, but mostly the school’s focus was how to live in community. “Everything that we went through at St. Augustine Seminary High School prepared Robert Prevost for his position,” says Franks. “Not just education but dealing with people and learning patience and how to behave.”

From Michigan, Prevost went to Villanova, the Augustinian university just outside Philadelphia. It was in Pennsylvania that he really developed his love of driving, which according to two contemporaries, he would do while reading a book. He and three friends once asked Father Bill Sullivan, who oversaw would-be friars, if they could drive to a church dance in Chicago—some 12 hours away—and be back the following afternoon. In January. Their request was declined. “He just was an easy guy to be with,” says Sullivan, now a parochial vicar at St. Jude’s, the church the Utters belong to in New Lenox, Ill. “He made friends. People really listened to him.” Prevost majored in math and minored in philosophy, but it was pretty much the end of his study of anything not directly related to his faith. In September 1977, shortly after he finished his coursework at Villanova, he made the first round of vows to join the Augustinian order.

At 22, Robert Prevost was committing his life to an establishment in the midst of generational change. The Catholic Church of his parents had been altered profoundly by the Second Vatican Council, which released a series of reports in the mid-’60s, loosening up some of the church’s strictures and establishing a series of new procedures and rules that allowed, among other things, Mass to be said in languages that were not Latin and pastoral care for those who are divorced. One result of these changes was a call for a new style of urban and more ecumenical Catholic university. Prevost joined an institution founded on those principles.

The Catholic Theological Union (CTU), housed in the former Aragon Hotel, was a decade old when Prevost arrived. Two dozen or so men’s orders studied there, as well as women and laypeople, and the school had female professors and a rabbi on staff. What it didn’t have was any students on the way to becoming diocesan priests. (They trained in the more palatial Mundelein Seminary outside Chicago.) The mix of cultures, genders, and orders and the shedding of hierarchy—professors were called by their first names—made it an exciting place to be. “It was, in a certain sense, the best of what religious community can become,” says Sister Dianne Bergant, 88, who taught there for 45 years. 

Bergant marveled at the opportunities she was given. “This is going to sound like an exaggeration, but I do not ever remember being minimized by my male colleagues because I was a woman,” she says. “Women were considered to be theologians in the same way as men.” She had Prevost in two classes, Old Testament and Pentateuch, and doesn’t remember him at all but can tell from her class notes that he did well and always turned in his assignments on time. Each student had a spiritual director, and Prevost chose Sister Lyn Osiek, who also supervised his theological-reflection class. “Calm and steady,” says Osiek. “Those are the two words that I would say about him. It was just like nothing fazed him. He was really a person who was at peace with himself.”

At the end of the day students from a religious order went back to the houses of their communities where professors from the order also lived and dined and prayed with them. About a dozen Augustinians lived together in the St. John Stone Friary in Hyde Park, with others coming and going. While it’s safe to say it was collegial, it was not one of the party houses. “Sometimes we were invited up to different parts of the building where the other communities were to celebrate various things,” says Prevost’s classmate Father Mark Francis, now superior general of the Viatorians. “The Passionists, for example, would always have a Kentucky Derby Day. And the Precious Blood always had kegs of beer.” Bergant confirms this: “Those Precious Blood men put on good parties.”

(The St. John Stone Friary has been in the news over the years because a priest accused of abusing at least 13 minors was allowed to move in there in 2000. A victims’ group filed a complaint with the Vatican in March, alleging that Prevost “endangered the safety” of children by allowing the priest to live near an elementary school. “To our knowledge, Pope Leo XIV has acted in accordance with Church policies in every abuse case,” the Archdiocese of Chicago said in a statement in May, “and has consistently expressed his compassion for survivors of this crime and sin.” A lawyer for Midwest Augustinians has suggested the location was selected because of the supervision the priest would receive. The complaint also alleged that Prevost failed to properly handle three women’s claims of sexual abuse while he was bishop in Peru in 2022; the Vatican has said Prevost followed church protocol and sent the results of an initial investigation to Rome. The Vatican closed its own investigation in August 2023, though the diocese later reopened the case.)

The scholarship at CTU was both rigorous and progressive. One of the required classes, on Christology, had two versions, one taught by a professor trained by Edward Schillebeeckx, the respected Belgian theologian who promulgated the idea that the true role of the Christian was not to ascribe to a certain set of beliefs but to right injustice as Jesus did, and the other trained by the equally respected German theologian Karl Rahner, whose emphasis was on the mystical nature of Christ and thus of all humans. 

“We were not trained in a very doctrinaire, rigid kind of theology,” says Francis, who served a stint as CTU’s president. “One of the strengths of the school was the missiological part. The question of religion and culture was very important in terms of how we have to recalibrate things if you’re moving from one group to another, one culture to another.” Many of CTU’s graduates became missionaries, including one of Prevost’s contemporaries, Ezechiele Ramin, who was murdered in 1985 in Brazil as he tried to broker peace between the corporate landowners and the local landless farmers. There is a campaign to have him beatified. 

Bishop Daniel Turley, who lived in the Augustinian friary for a few months in the late ’70s, remembers Prevost as being particularly committed to the idea of doing missionary work. In general, the Augustinians are considered a missionary order who teach and preach. St. Augustine left Europe and moved to North Africa with a handful of other devotees to live out a life saturated by their beliefs while also absorbed in the needs of their neighbors. Augustinians don’t stay in one place like the Benedictines, but move around, bringing their gifts to different places, but always among other Augustinians. The current Pope once described the order as “brothers and friends whose lives and witness truly make a difference.”

Wherever Prevost has gone, he has been among men who had been trained as he was and committed to sharing everything. Even when he was a Cardinal with his own papal apartment, he went to the Augustinian curia for meals and Mass every day, and once a week to play tennis; he dined there at least twice in the early weeks of his papacy. “He was very interested in what I was doing in Peru,” says Turley, who worked there for 52 years. While other students were heading to their rooms to study, Prevost wanted to talk about what people in Turley’s diocese needed. “Of all of them, he was the most community minded,” says Turley.

If Prevost spent most of his first quarter-century less than 800 miles from his home, the decades that followed would take him quite a bit farther. After he graduated from CTU and took his solemn vows in 1981, he was invited to study canon law in Rome. “Americans had stopped going to study in Rome,” says Galetto, who was one of the first to return. “We thought American theology was better, more modern. It wasn’t based on patristics, but more on psychology and sociology.” When he arrived with Robert Dodaro, his co-valedictorian from way back at high school, neither speaking Italian, Galetto was their guide. John Paul II, now St. John Paul II, had just been elected, a youngish Polish Pope emerging at the same time as Lech Walesa’s Polish trade union, Solidarity. “There was this electric feel,” says Galetto. “Large crowds were coming to the audiences.”

While Prevost was studying a historic and doctrinaire subject, essentially the legal framework for the Catholic Church’s operations, at the Angelicum, a 440-year-old school where John Paul II had also studied, he was surrounded by the excitement of a new era. The Augustinian house was across St. Peter’s Square from the Vatican, and it was filled with men from around the world. Galetto remembers Prevost really enjoying the global nature of the brotherhood. “When you study in Rome, you realize that the church is really universal,” says Galetto. “Many of the Augustinians who are in the United States, we just think that the American problems are the church’s problems, but there’s so much more than that.”

Because of his legal expertise, Prevost was asked to become personal secretary to a bishop in Chulucanas in northern Peru. But he arrived in the aftermath of deadly El Niño floods and set to work helping rebuild the region. “When you’re a missionary, you just learn how to do everything, from electronics to auto mechanics,” said then Cardinal Prevost during a visit to St. Jude’s last year. It was not a seamless process. There might still not have been an American Pope if one of Prevost’s Augustinian brethren hadn’t saved him from being electrocuted with a well-aimed tackle on a roof after the young missionary picked up the wrong two wires.

While Pope Leo owes his formal education almost solely to the northern hemisphere, much of his shaping as a practitioner occurred in Peru. “Those are the life experiences that give you life to continue on, that nourish you,” says Turley, who was Prevost’s superior when he arrived. “As a young priest, to go through that, and see how beautiful it is, how poor people can be, and yet all of the goodness and the power of people when they come together, and the wonderful things that they can do if you start breaking down prejudices and division.” Prevost said as much at St. Jude’s: “The part of ministry that most shaped my life is Peru.” 

After a decade in South America, it must have been quite an adjustment to take on the role of head of his home Augustinian province, which stretches throughout the Midwest and into Canada. One of his duties as provincial prior was to minister to Augustinian schools, and he was called in to help out St. Rita of Cascia High School in Chicago. The students have a retreat every year, and the school likes to invite priests who are unfamiliar to the boys to hear confession so they don’t feel awkward. In 2000, Prevost was one of those priests. “I had gone to confession several times before, but it was like two minutes, let me get out of here as quickly as I can,” says Patrick “PJ” McCarthy. “But this was more of just a conversation.” The two sat knee to knee in the darkened room and talked about underage drinking and sibling rivalry, among other things. “He was not judging me, and he was just very open,” recalls McCarthy. Mike Stawski, who was on the retreat as a student leader, noticed right away that Prevost was different from most priests. “What was so fascinating about him was that almost immediately, we forgot that he wasn’t with us the whole time. He was so welcoming, so caring for what we were doing.”

After two years, Prevost was voted in as the head, or prior general, of all Augustinians, based again in Rome. He traveled a lot, encouraging the other 2,800 or so Augustinian friars around the world. But priors general can serve only two terms, and in 2013, Prevost found himself back in Chicago, back at CTU, helping guide Augustinians in training, work usually done by much younger men. “It’s like having the CEO of an international organization retire from being CEO, but yet be employed by the organization for passing out mail,” says Bergant, the Old Testament scholar. 

If Prevost felt it was a comedown, he said nothing to his friends. That’s the Father Bob the folks of New Lenox talk about, never too busy or too big for his community. After Father Mike Schweifler had a heart transplant on Easter in 2005, the women of St. Jude’s who were looking after him struggled to get his brethren to visit. But Prevost, who was prior general, came several times. “Sometimes he was just on a stopover and he drove here from O’Hare for a few hours or a few minutes,” says Denise Utter. “And then he’d go back to O’Hare, because he had a connecting flight.”

At the same time Prevost’s friends want to make clear that he’s not overly reverent. He laughed when they showed him Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment about his election on YouTube. When they get together for pizza (he favors mushroom and sausage), “we mostly don’t talk about faith-based things at all,” says Utter. Lisa Salva and her husband Rich visited Prevost in Rome in 2011, and he took them through a back door to St. Peter’s Basilica for Mass so that they emerged right under the altar. “When I walked up that spiral staircase, I looked up and I went, ‘Jesus Christ!’” recalls Salva. “And he goes, ‘That’s a good reaction.’” The current Pope also knows his way around a good clean Midwestern joke, at least according to his brother. One of the last jokes he told Pope Francis was about going to the doctor because his arm hurt in two places, says John Prevost. “And the Pope said, ‘Really? What did the doctors say?’ And Bob said, ‘Doctors told me: Don’t go to those places.’”

Prevost’s return to Chicago also turned out to be something of a stopover, because in 2014, Francis, whom Prevost had met when the late Pontiff was still Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, asked him to return to Peru, this time as bishop of Chiclayo, a large metropolis in the north. The diocese was dominated by clerics who were members of Opus Dei, a very conservative sect of Catholicism, and Prevost, who had to become a Peruvian citizen to become a bishop, was charged with moving it back to the middle. “So you had some resistance to the new bishop,” says Turley. “But those [Opus Dei adherents] who were in control quickly lost control, because the people really wanted someone who was open and welcoming.”

The challenges weren’t only from within the church. “Right after he became a bishop, we had the tremendous problem of Venezuela,” says Turley, who oversaw the Catholic Church’s response to the 1.5 million asylum seekers accepted into Peru after the Venezuelan economy and civil society began to collapse in 2014. They needed housing, jobs, and medical help. “One of the best bishops to work with in dealing with migrants was none other than Bishop Robert Prevost,” says Turley. “His diocese was so well organized to take care of them.” 

The combination of Prevost’s formal but reformist education and long fieldwork among people with very little but each other to insulate them from hardship was perhaps what drew Pope Francis to swiftly raise his standing at the Vatican as the Pontiff saw the dying of the light. In Hope, Francis’ last book, he wrote that for the church to grow, it had to focus less on conversion and more on attracting people through the way Christians lived, and therefore for high-ranking church officials, “the title of ‘servant’—here in the sense of ministry—should obscure that of ‘eminence.’”

In 2023, Prevost was made a Cardinal and moved back to Vatican City, working in successively more prominent roles, until the announcement of his election in May. “He’s been formed in the kind of church that is forward-thinking, missionary in its outlook, globally aware, and then, especially in Peru, very deeply formed by his accompaniment of people who were the poorest,” says Sister Barbara Reid, the current president of CTU. “You can hear it in everything he says.”

For many, it can be hard to believe the Catholic Church has any relevance today. All those ornate empty buildings with men in robes waving smoke around elderly congregants, preaching homilies with references to activities as quaint as shepherding and sowing, and praying to dead saints whose miracles are now forgotten or considered dubious. The first American Pope officially comes from the Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel, which seems almost as fantastical as coming from the Gladden Fields of Middle Earth. The church of his childhood, St. Mary of the Assumption, is abandoned, its stained-glass windows (one displaying the papal keys) uncontemplated.

But every time one expression of faith dies, a new one seems to rise up offering something more in keeping with the needs of the era. History records the first Pope Leo as an adept diplomat; he’s credited with persuading Attila the Hun not to sack Rome. The current Pope Leo has already offered Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky a place to negotiate. In the wake of the U.S. bombing of Iran, he urged world leaders to “stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable abyss.” 

When Galetto saw his fellow Augustinian step onto the balcony, he paused for a moment to reflect on the mysterious ways of the universe. “We started at the same place 40 years ago. Here I am stapling papers together at a parish because we’re having a prayer service,” he says, “and he’s going to be talking to Putin about the war in Ukraine. God had a plan for him, and God had a plan for me.”

Bob Prevost might never climb behind the wheel of a car again. But Pope Leo might be able to drive something. Already inquiries about becoming an Augustinian novitiate are up fivefold from last year. Augustinian websites have been flooded with traffic. And another type of visitor has been showing up on John Prevost’s doorstep: people who feel that an American Pope is a sign. “Because of my brother, they are going back to the church,” says the older Prevost. “They say, ‘I’ve been away for a long time. And I’d like to come back.’”

President John F. Kennedy said in 1961 that “there is no escaping” what he described as America’s “moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations; our economic obligations as the wealthiest people in a world of largely poor people, as a nation no longer dependent upon the loans from abroad that once helped us develop our own economy; and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.”

He was speaking to Congress about foreign aid and later that year would establish through executive order what has since been known as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which helped make the U.S. the world’s largest foreign aid provider. 

For more than six decades, USAID has helped dozens of low- and middle-income countries, including conflict-stricken ones, to improve access to food, water, health care, and education. It’s helped stop disease outbreaks, revolutionize agricultural practices, and in some cases, promote democracy.

But on Tuesday, USAID shutters its doors for good.

The agency’s dismantling began just days after President Donald Trump returned to the White House at the start of this year. Tech billionaire and one-time Trump ally Elon Musk, who was spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency, singled out the agency as a locus of “corruption and waste,” despite the fact that it constituted just about 0.5% of government spending.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who took the reins of the agency in February, said in March that more than four-fifths of USAID programs were cancelled, and the approximately 1,000 that remained would be absorbed by the State Department by July 1, even amid court battles about the constitutionality of USAID’s closure.

On the eve of USAID’s final day, former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama gathered with former staffers as well as U2 singer and humanitarian Bono on a video call. Obama described USAID’s gutting as a “travesty” and a “tragedy,” according to the Associated Press.

“You’ve showed the great strength of America through your work,” Bush told the USAID staffers. “Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you.”

Trump, evidently, does not.

Just how many lives won’t be saved as a result of the closure of USAID has been the subject of several studies and projections. 

On Monday, medical research journal The Lancet estimated that USAID prevented the deaths of more than 90 million people between 2001 to 2021. The study, conducted by researchers from Brazil, Mozambique, and Spain, forecasted that the defunding of the agency could lead to some 14 million deaths by 2030, including 4.5 million deaths of children and babies under the age of 5.

Here are some of the biggest estimated impacts of the U.S. shirking Kennedy’s “obligations.”

Hundreds of thousands of HIV-AIDS deaths

To fight against HIV globally, President Bush launched PEPFAR, or the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2003. The program supports some 20.6 million people with HIV worldwide, including 566,000 children, through providing anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to control the infection. The program also provided HIV testing services to 83.8 million people in 2024.

USAID was PEPFAR’s main implementing agency, and while the State Department is seeking $2.9 billion in funding to continue HIV-AIDS programs, it’s far lower than the at least $4.7 billion budget PEPFAR had. 

A study published in the Retrovirology journal in March said that the suspension of USAID funding could hamper access to ART and cause a potential resurgence of up to 630,000 HIV-AIDS-related deaths annually, with sub-Saharan Africa most affected.

Millions of malaria cases

USAID has invested $9 billion to help tackle malaria, the mosquito-borne illness that is preventable and curable but causes millions of deaths in Africa every year, since the inception of the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) in 2005.

An impact tracker by Boston University infectious disease mathematical modeller and health economist Dr. Brooke Nichols and Amsterdam-based product manager Eric Moakley forecast almost 10 million additional cases of malaria globally—of which an estimated 7 million would affect children—in just one year due to USAID funding cuts.

The tracker also only considered African countries that were part of PMI and did not include countries in Asia that have also been supported by USAID. “Thus we may be underestimating the effect of PMI’s cessation,” it said.

Millions of Sudanese to lose access to ‘lifesaving’ health services

The war-torn northeast African country of Sudan was among those worst hit by USAID’s suspension. More than half of its 50 million population is in need of humanitarian assistance as residents suffer from famine and disease outbreaks amid ongoing conflict. The World Health Organization estimates that 5 million Sudanese people may lose access to “lifesaving” health services as a result of the cuts, according to the Washington Post.

Naomi Ruth Pendle, a lecturer at the University of Bath in the U.K., wrote for The Conversation in April that the sudden suspension of USAID is “is set to make the famine in Sudan the deadliest for half a century.”

Read this story in English here

نمازی گروگان سابق آمریکایی در ایران است و اکنون عضو هیئت مشاوران ابتکار آزادی برای زندانیان سیاسی در مؤسسه مک‌کین و گروه کمک جهانی به گروگان‌ها است.

وقتی تصاویر دروازه‌ی ورودی زندان اوین را دیدم که با حمله‌ی هوایی اسرائیل تکه تکه شده بود، چشمانم پر از اشک شد. من هشت سال پشت آن دروازه به‌عنوان گروگان جمهوری اسلامی نگهداری شدم — در مکانی که ظلم، قانون است و امید قاچاق می‌شود.

اما اشک‌هایم از خوشحالی نبود. از این‌که کسانی که من و بعدتر پدر بیمارم را به سلول انفرادی انداختند بالاخره تاوانی پس داده‌اند، لذتی نمی‌بردم. قبلم پر از اندوه بود وقتی به وحشتی فکر می‌کردم که اکنون بسیاری از زندانیان بی‌گناه — از جمله کسانی که سال‌ها هم‌سلولی‌ام بودند — و خانواده‌هایشان تجربه می‌کنند.

این فقط یک حمله به نماد سرکوب نبود. اسرائیل تنها درِ زندان را منفجر نکرد. بمب‌هایش، در ساعات کاری، مجتمع قضایی شهید مقدس را نیز به شدت تخریب کرد. جایی که زندانیان را پیش بازپرسان بی‌رحم می‌برند و وارد ماشین سرکوب دادگاه انقلاب می‌کنند. من در آن اتاق‌ها بوده‌ام، دست‌بند خورده و تحقیر شده، مقابل مردانی که خود را قاضی می‌نامیدند اما مانند زیردستان مأموران اطلاعات رفتار می‌کردند و هر حکمی که آنها می‌دادند را امضا می‌کردند. یکی‌شان را در خفا “جنایت‌کار” صدا می‌زدم، لقبی که بازی با نامش بود و بین ما ماندگار شد. یادم هست وقتی در بی‌خبری کامل و قطع از دنیای بیرون به سر می‌بردم با پوزخندی گفت: «مادرت طبقه‌ی پایین منتظره. هر روز میاد و التماس می‌کنه برای ملاقات»؛ پوزخندی که دلم می‌خواست با سیلی از صورتش پاک کنم.

اما آن مرکز بی‌عدالتی فقط پر از جلاد نبود. بمب‌ها بین بازپرسان ظالم و زندانیان سیاسی، و یا سربازان وظیفه ۱۸ تا ۲۰ ساله که صرفاً مأمور همراهی زندانیان هستند فرق نمی‌گذارند. آیا وکلای حقوق بشری که با شجاعت از بی‌دفاع‌ها دفاع می‌کردند هم در میان قربانیان بودند؟ چند نفر از نظافت‌چی‌ها و کارمندان اداری که از حومه‌ی دور و فقیر تهران برای کار می‌آمدند حالا کشته یا مجروح شده‌اند؟ خانواده‌هایی که در سالن انتظار بودند، مثل زمانی که مادرم هر روز می‌آمد تا درخواست ملاقات یا دارو کند، چه سرنوشتی پیدا کردند؟

بمب‌های اسرائیل درمانگاه زندان را هم زدند؛ جایی که من و بسیاری دیگر بارها برای ویزیت به صف می‌شدیم. جائی که پر از ناامیدی بود، اما شجاعت‌های پنهانی هم وجود داشت. بر سر آن دکتر زن جوان که من «قهرمان» خطابش می‌کردم چه آمد؟ او یک بار در دوران کرونا با شجاعت وارد بند زنان شد مسئولان زندان را مجبور کرد که یک زندانی سیاسی را که وضعیت وخیم کرونایی داشت، به بیمارستان منتقل کنند. او جان آن زن را نجات داد. کارکنان درمانگاه بارها به ما کمک کردند — کمک‌هایی که نمی‌توانم علنی بگویم. مهربانی‌های بی‌منت و بی‌پاداش‌شان به ما امید ادامه زندگی می‌داد. حالا آن درمانگاه ویران شده است.

بند ۴، که محل نگهداری بسیاری از زندانیان سیاسی و گروگان‌های دوتابعیتی یا خارجی است، نیز آسیب دیده. از جمله کتابخانه، تنها پناهگاه ما، جایی که من بیشتر روزها را آن‌جا می‌گذراندم. بند زنان هم آسیب دیده. بلافاصله بعد از حمله، زندانیان سیاسی زن و مرد را ناگهانی سوار اتوبوس کرده‌اند و بدون وسایل شخصی‌شان به مکانی نامعلوم منتقل کرده‌اند. خانواده‌های وحشت‌زده اکنون مستاصل با یکدیگر تماس می‌گیرند، دنبال خبری از عزیزانشان هستند، دعا می‌کنند که زنده باشند و نظام سعی نکند از آن‌ها انتقام حمله اسرائیلی‌ها را بگیرد‌.

زندان اوین شامل چندین بازداشتگاه است. بدترین‌شان زیر نظر وزارت اطلاعات و سپاه پاسداران قرار دارد. بنا به خبرهای رسید، آن‌ها نیز آسیب دیده‌اند. من بیش از دو سال در یکی از همان بازداشتگاه‌ها بودم. نمی‌دانیم آیا بازجوهایی که من را کتک می‌زدند آسیب دیده‌اند یا نه، همان‌طور که نمی‌دانیم آیا زندانیان سیاسی زیر آوار سلول‌های انفرادی و اتاق‌های شکنجه مدفون شده‌اند یا نه.

مرکز ملاقات زندان هم آسیب دیده. چند زندانی، خانواده یا وکیل در آن‌جا کشته یا مجروح شده‌اند؟ آن ناظر مهربانی که اجازه می‌داد مادرم بیشتر بماند و محدودیت ۲۰ دقیقه‌ای ملاقات‌ها را نادیده می‌گرفت و می‌گفت: «این تنها کمکیه که می‌تونم به خانواده شما که انقدر ظلم دیده بکنم»، چه سرنوشتی یافت؟

این یک حمله‌ی هدفمند به فرماندهان نظامی یا مقامات عالی‌رتبه رژیم نبود. این بمب‌ها مردم ایران را تشویق نمی‌کند تا علیه جمهوری اسلامی برخیزند. برعکس. یکی از زندانیان سابق می‌گوید خانواده‌های زندانیان، نگهبانان و کارکنان آن بیرون زندان جمع شده‌اند تا بلکه خبری از عزیزشان بشنوند و در کنار هم در حال اشک ریختن هستند.

بمباران اوین نشان می‌دهد وقتی دو نظام غیراخلاقیبا هم برخورد می‌کنند، چه اتفاقی می‌افتد: یکی بی‌گناهان را زندانی می‌کند، و دیگری با بمب‌بارانشان مدعی آزادی آن‌ها است. تنها امید ما این است که آتش‌بس شکننده میان ایران، اسرائیل و آمریکا پابرجا بماند و این دیوانگی پایان یابد.

اما حتی اگر چنین شود، همه می‌دانیم بعدش چه خواهد شد. آیت‌الله‌ها که نتوانسته‌اند جلوی بمب‌ها را بگیرند، خشم خود را به داخل نشانه خواهند گرفت. آن‌ها سعی خواهند کرد با خشونت قدرت خود را بازگردانند. هزاران نفر دستگیر، شکنجه و اعدام خواهند شد تا رژیم با ایجاد ترس زنده بماند. جوامع آسیب‌پذیرتر — مانند بهائیان — احتمالاً جزو نخستین قربانیان خواهند بود.

همان‌طور که همیشه بوده، بی‌گناهان بیشترین تاوان را خواهند داد.

The Iran-Israel ceasefire seems to be holding. Arab capitals are relieved about the de-escalation. But they are also alarmed about what the latest flare up means for the Middle East.

When Iran signed the JCPOA nuclear deal with the Obama Administration, its reception in the Arab Gulf was, at best, frosty. The Iranian regime’s role in propping up Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria—one of the most devastating in modern Arab history—combined with its nefarious influence in Iraq and Lebanon, ensured that Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain saw the deal not as a diplomatic breakthrough, but as an endorsement of a destabilizing actor.

So when President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, these same states applauded the move. Others in the region, including Egypt and Jordan, while more muted, also expressed concern about Tehran’s regional agenda. Yet fast forward to the present and the very same states opposed a fight with Iran, and support re-engagement.

This U-Turn is not due to any newfound trust in Tehran. The Arab Gulf states, broadly speaking, remain deeply cynical about the Iranian regime. If the Islamic Republic could be replaced with something more pragmatic and less ideologically driven than Khomeini’s revolutionary doctrine, few in the Arab Gulf would mourn. But this cynicism has evolved into a pragmatic rejection of war—especially one at the behest of a belligerent Israel and a complicit Washington.

For these reasons, the overwhelming response in Arab capitals has been fierce opposition to Israel’s strikes, and America’s bombing on June 22.

There are two core reasons for this opposition. First, these strikes are not happening in isolation. Over the past 20 months, Israel has waged a deadly and destructive campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, which has brought about a genocide case at the International Court of Justice. Israel has also expanded its military footprint beyond the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, amid the chaos following the ouster of Assad. And it has struck Beirut and parts of Lebanon repeatedly, including within the past week.

In short, even among states that are highly critical of Iran, there are concerns about an unrestrained Israel. A vision of a new regional order where Israel behaves with impunity while dictating security norms to its neighbors is profoundly unwelcome to Arab states, including traditionally pro-Western Arab governments such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The second reason is more fundamental. For decades, Arab societies have criticized the West’s selective enforcement of international norms. That includes the 2003 Iraq war, Israel’s ongoing occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, and more recently the U.S. denunciation of the ICJ case and sanctioning of ICC judges after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. There is a perception that powerful Western states shield Tel Aviv from consequences.

Read More: The West Is Losing the Global South Over Gaza

To be sure, the Arab states are hardly models of legality themselves. Various U.N. reports have repeatedly described an undemocratic region rife with issues around corruption, nepotism, and closed civil society spaces. But the powerful Western countries that erected the “rules-based” order should be exemplar pillars of it—otherwise, trust in the project altogether collapses.

That’s why the U.S. bombing of Iran—using the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the heaviest non-nuclear weapon in its arsenal—set a dangerous precedent. Despite the undeniable nature of Iran being a nefarious actor in the region, there was no imminent threat, no U.N. Security Council authorization, and no widespread international consensus to engage in such a military strike.

The war between Iran and Israel is over, at least for now. Whether Iran’s nuclear program has been hobbled is a separate question, one that analysts and intelligence agencies will continue to assess in the weeks and months to come. 

But something else may have also ended. A new era is emerging in the region increasingly defined by a presumption that might equals right. The consequences of this have yet to be truly understood—but there are likely to be many repercussions indeed.

British punk-rock and hip-hop duo Bob Vylan will not be able to perform in the U.S., where they were scheduled to open for American singer grandson’s tour in October and November, after a controversial performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England over the weekend.

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted on X on Monday that the Department has revoked the duo’s visas “in light of their hateful tirade at Glastonbury, including leading the crowd in death chants.” Landau added: “Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.” 

At the Glastonbury Festival, which is aired annually on BBC, one of the group’s members, Bobby Vylan, led the crowd on Saturday to chant, “Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces, to the shock of organizers and onlookers.

The duo has faced a firestorm of criticism in the U.K., and British police said they are examining videos of the incident for possible criminal violations.

The Israeli embassy in the U.K. said it was “deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage” and that “when such messages are delivered before tens of thousands of festivalgoers and met with applause, it raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence.”

“We are appalled by the statements made from the West Holts stage by Bob Vylan yesterday,” Emily Eavis, the co-organizer of Glastonbury and daughter of the festival’s founder, said in a statement. “Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the Festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned Vylan’s actions on the Glastonbury stage, saying, “There is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech.” He also demanded that the BBC answer questions about streaming the controversial remarks.

In a statement, the BBC said Vylan’s expressions “were utterly unacceptable and have no place on our airwaves.” It explained that the performance was aired on its channels because the BBC team was dealing with “a live situation” but added that “with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance.”

Starmer had previously said that it was “not appropriate” for Irish rap trio Kneecap, who have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and accused the U.S. and U.K. of enabling it, to be performing at the festival, and the BBC had decided in advance not to broadcast Kneecap’s performance live to “ensure that our programming meets our editorial guidelines.”

Bob Vylan performed before Kneecap’s set, where festival attendees had gathered in anticipation with Palestinian flags. Singer Bobby Vylan first led the crowd to chant, “Free, free, Palestine!” Then he interjected: “Alright, but have you heard this one though?” before leading a chant of “Death, death to the IDF!”

The chant recalled the phrasing of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” chants by Iranians as well as “Death to Arabs” chants by Israelis.

Following the controversy that ensued, Bobby Vylan wrote “I said what I said” on Instagram, where he shared a statement that explained: “Teaching our children to speak up for the change they want and need is the only way that we make this world a better place.”

Here’s what to know.

Who is Bob Vylan?

Bob Vylan is composed of singer-guitarist Bobby Vylan and drummer Bobbie Vylan, and they collectively refer to themselves as “the Bobs.” The two have used stage names reportedly to maintain privacy, but some U.K. media have since identified Bobby Vylan as 34-year-old Pascal Robinson-Foster.

The duo, which formed in Ipswich in 2017 and has more than 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, is known for its politically charged music and performances.

According to the Independent, their songs “often speak out against racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity and far right politics,” and in past performances Bobby would preface their song “Pretty Songs” by saying “violence is the only language that some people understand.” The paper also said that Bobby has been deliberately provocative in past performances, such as by swinging a baseball bat at the crowd or wearing the soccer jersey of the rival team of where they were performing.

Last year, Bobby told the Irish Times that he was infuriated by bands that didn’t speak up more about Gaza. The U.K. and U.S. governments’ response, he said, “but also the people’s response – the people of these countries … will be remembered forever. It will be documented throughout history. If you’re asking yourself, ‘Oh, what would you have done during slavery? What would you have done throughout the Holocaust?’ You’re doing it now – right now. With what it is happening over there in Palestine, you’re doing it.”

Since the Glastonbury performance, the duo was reportedly dropped by United Talent Agency.

What are the reactions in the U.S.?

Sen. Ted Cruz (R, Texas) reposted video of the incident on X, and commented: “Truly sick. Thousands of people screaming ‘Death to the IDF.’ This is the base of the Democrat Party.”

StopAntisemitism, an advocacy group in the U.S., flagged on X that the duo has scheduled performances in the U.S. later this year and said of Bobby Vylan: “This antisemite must have his visa denied/rescinded – his hate is not welcome here.” 

Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida responded to the post, saying “On it.”

Leo Terrell, who chairs the Justice Department’s task force to combat antisemitism, also responded to StopAntisemitism’s post, which he was tagged in.

“These abhorrent chants, which included calls for the death of members of the Israeli Defense Forces, are abhorrent and have no place in any civil society,” Terrell posted on X. “We understand that Mr. Vylan is planning to travel to the United States as part of the Inertia Tour. In response, Mr. Terrell’s Task Force will be reaching out to the U.S. Department of State on Monday to determine what measures are available to address the situation and to prevent the promotion of violent antisemitic rhetoric in the United States.”

After Landau’s announcement, Terrell thanked the State Department for “moving so fast on this.” Bobby Vylan “is a person who wants to incite violence and we’re not going to allow that under the Trump Administration,” Terrell said on Fox News. “The Trump Administration is not going to allow antisemitism to exist in this country.”

A State Department spokesperson told TIME before Landau’s announcement that it does not publicly discuss the details of individual cases but that the Department “is committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety.” The spokesperson added that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been clear that “a U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right.”

Trump Administration immigration officials announced in April that they would screen visa applicants’ social media accounts for “antisemitic” content. “There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin at the time.

The Administration has also claimed to reject censorship at home and abroad, with the State Department announcing visa restrictions in May for foreign officials who restrict “protected expression” in the U.S. “Free speech,” Rubio said in the announcement, “is among the most cherished rights we enjoy as Americans.”

After brokering a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Donald Trump is urging Israel and Hamas to make a deal that would stop the 20-month-long war in Gaza that has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians and over a thousand Israelis.

“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” the U.S. President posted on Truth Social early Sunday.

Trump told reporters on Friday that an agreement could be reached within the next week. On Saturday evening Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “right now in the process of negotiating a Deal with Hamas, which will include getting the Hostages back,” in a post slamming the corruption proceedings against Netanyahu. An Israeli court on Monday postponed this week’s hearings in Netanyahu’s trial after he made a request based on classified diplomatic and security reasons.

“How is it possible that the Prime Minister of Israel can be forced to sit in a Courtroom all day long, over NOTHING (Cigars, Bugs Bunny Doll, etc.). It is a POLITICAL WITCH HUNT, very similar to the Witch Hunt that I was forced to endure,” Trump wrote. “This travesty of ‘Justice’ will interfere with both Iran and Hamas negotiations.”

Read More: Trump Tries to ‘Save’ Netanyahu as Israeli PM Faces Challenges at Home

An Israeli official told the Associated Press that Ron Dermer, a top adviser to Netanyahu, will visit Washington this week for ceasefire talks. Netanyahu met with his security Cabinet on Sunday evening and plans are being made for him to visit Washington in coming weeks, the official said.

Trump’s shift in focus towards Gaza comes after Iran and Israel agreed to a tenuous ceasefire on June 23, ending the so-called “12 Day War” ignited by Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program. Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, renewed a ceasefire push for Gaza after the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Hamas has told mediators that it is ready to resume talks but reiterated that any deal must include an end to the war and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a Hamas official told Reuters.

Call for ceasefire comes as Israel escalates war

At the same time that Trump called for a deal, Israel continued to escalate its military bombardment of Gaza. The Israeli military ordered a mass evacuation of Palestinians in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people live in eastern and northern Gaza City and the Jabaliya refugee camp. The Israeli Defense Forces’ attacks will expand westward to Gaza City center, the order said. People are ordered to evacuate to Mawasi in southern Gaza, which Israel has designated as a humanitarian area.

Uprooting their lives at a moment’s notice has become routine for Palestinians in Gaza over the last nearly two years of war. Humanitarian organizations have criticized Israel’s sweeping evacuation orders in the past as being unpredictable and having short deadlines that are virtually impossible for many, including the sick and disabled. On Sunday, Palestinians in Gaza City were yet again forced to load their children and essentials onto donkey carts before the military’s attacks, the AP reported. United Nations officials have said that nowhere in Gaza is safe. At least five people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in Khan Younis near Mawasi, the designated safe area, over the weekend, medics said.

“A month ago, they told us to go to Al-Mawasi and we stayed there for a month, it is a safe zone,” Palestinian Zeyad Abu Marouf told Reuters. Three of his children were killed and a fourth wounded in the airstrike, he said.

“Families have been displaced again and again—and are now confined to less than one-fifth of Gaza’s land,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said on Friday. “Even these shrinking spaces are under threat. Bombs are falling—on tents, on families, on those with nowhere left to run.”

Roadblocks remain over a deal

In spite of Trump’s optimism, skepticism over a deal remains.

Hamas has accused Israeli leaders of purposely delaying a deal. Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi reportedly said on Telegram on Sunday that Netanyahu set “impossible conditions aimed at thwarting the possibility of reaching a ceasefire agreement and a deal on the hostages.”

Hamas has reportedly offered Israel a deal that includes the release of all hostages in exchange for a full withdrawal of Israel’s military from Gaza and an end to the war. But Mardawi said Netanyahu has insisted on a temporary agreement that releases only 10 hostages. “Netanyahu lies when he claims he is not involved in choosing the names of the hostages,” Mardawi wrote. “He does not want a deal.”

Netanyahu spokesperson Omer Dostri did not address Mardawi’s claims but said, “Hamas was the only obstacle to ending the war,” according to the AP. Israel has said it will only agree to end the war in exchange for the full dismantlement and exile of Hamas.

While Trump has repeatedly urged a ceasefire in Gaza, he’s also suggested a U.S. takeover that turns the territory into “a freedom zone” and proposed that Jordan and Egypt take in Palestinians as part of a “clean out” of the Gaza Strip. 

In February, Trump said the U.S. could take a “long-term ownership position” over Gaza, “level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area.” That month, he also shared an AI-generated video on Truth Social of “Trump Gaza,” showing a reconstructed Gaza Strip with skyscrapers, luxury cars, and Trump drinking by a pool with Netanyahu.

Even if a deal is reached, it’s unclear whether it will last. Israel and Hamas reached a multi-phase ceasefire agreement in January, just as Trump was taking office. But Israel broke the ceasefire in March when it launched surprise airstrikes on Gaza before declaring that it was resuming the war.

Since then, pressure has been mounting on Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire, both from within and outside Israel. Pro-Palestinian protesters around the world turned out over the weekend to call for an end to the war. And earlier this month, the U.N. adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire, with Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya saying that it is the international community’s responsibility to stop the “slaughter” in Gaza.

Protests in Israel also resumed after a two-week pause during the Israel-Iran war, with demonstrators demanding a deal that would free the hostages still in Gaza. “There’s a deal on the table and what prevents it is Netanyahu’s refusal to end the war,” said Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, at the rally.

Earlier this month, former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Barak wrote in a TIME essay calling for Netanyahu to back a Trump-brokered ceasefire: “In the coming few days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face a defining choice between a politically motivated ‘war of deception’ in Gaza and a deal to release all hostages while ending the war. He must choose between his extreme-right ministers—Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich—or aligning with Donald Trump.”

Netanyahu said at the Sunday security meeting that “many opportunities have opened up” after Israel’s “victory” in Iran, and for one of the first times he appeared to prioritize hostage exchange over the defeat of Hamas, potentially signaling appetite for a ceasefire deal: “Firstly, to rescue the hostages,” he said. “Of course, we will also need to solve the Gaza issue, defeat Hamas, but I believe we will achieve both tasks.”

President Donald Trump issued blistering remarks in response to Iran’s Supreme Leader claiming victory over Israel and, by extension, the U.S. In a loaded public message, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had also threatened to attack more U.S. Military bases, further splintering the Middle Eastern country’s relationship with the U.S.

“Look, you’re a man of great faith. A man who’s highly respected in his country. You have to tell the truth. You got beat to hell,” Trump said as he addressed the Iranian Supreme Leader during a White House press conference on Friday. Trump was asked by a reporter if the U.S. would consider bombing Iran again, if intelligence reports were to conclude that Iran could enrich uranium to a level that concerns him. “Sure, without question, absolutely,” he replied.

Trump issued an even stronger response on his social media platform, Truth Social, later in the day, and doubled down on his stance once more when he reposted his message early Saturday morning.

In the lengthy post, Trump accused Khamenei of publicly sharing a “lie” by claiming Iran achieved a victory over Israel. He reaffirmed his much debated viewpoint that the U.S. strikes “obliterated” the three key nuclear facilities it targeted on Saturday, June 21. Trump also seemingly made reference to previous reports that stated the White House turned down a plan by Israel to try and kill Khamenei.

“His country was decimated, his three evil nuclear sites were obliterated, and I knew exactly where he was sheltered, and would not let Israel, or the U.S. Armed Forces… terminate his life. I saved him from a very ugly and ignominious death,” Trump said, lamenting that Khamenei would not “thank” him for this. “During the last few days, I was working on the possible removal of sanctions, and other things, which would have given a much better chance to Iran at a full, fast, and complete recovery. The sanctions are biting! But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief.”

According to Congress, the U.S. sanctions on Iran “are arguably the most extensive and comprehensive set of sanctions that the United States maintains on any country.” They block Iranian government assets in the U.S., ban nearly all U.S. trade with Iran, and prohibit foreign assistance and arms sales.

Read More: How U.S. Strikes May Have Inadvertently Helped the Iranian Regime

Trump concluded his charged social media message by saying “Iran has to get back into the world order flow” or else things “will only get worse for them.”

“They are always so angry, hostile, and unhappy, and look at what it has gotten them. A burned out, blown up country with no future, a decimated military, a horrible economy, and death all around them. They have no hope, and it will only get worse! I wish the leadership of Iran would realize that you often get more with honey than you do with vinegar. Peace!”

Khamenei broke his silence on Thursday, publicly speaking out—via a pre-recorded televised address and various social media comments— for the first time since Trump announced the (admittedly fragile) cease-fire between Israel and Iran.

Read More: Shaky Israel-Iran Cease-Fire Appears to Hold After Trump Publicly Rebukes Both Countries

In his televised message, Khamenei threatened to attack more U.S. military bases should any further aggression from the U.S. side occur.

“The Islamic Republic slapped America in the face. It attacked one of the important American bases in the region,” Khamenei said, referring to his country’s air assault on Al Udeid Air Base, a U.S. airbase in Qatar. The strikes were intercepted by the U.S. (except for one that was allowed to proceed as there was no risk of contact), and no casualties were reported. The military action was retaliatory, a direct response to the U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities. 

Khamenei claimed “total victory” over Israel. But Israel, the U.S., and Iran have all claimed to have won the war that started on June 13, when Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, amid growing concern over Iran’s nuclear capabilities. When the U.S. actively joined the conflict on June 21, striking three key Iranian nuclear facilities, world leaders urged de-escalation and a return to negotiations, amid fears of a far-reaching war erupting.

Read More: ‘Gravely Alarmed’ World Leaders React After U.S. Strikes Iran

Though Trump continues to say that Iran’s nuclear sites were “totally obliterated,” others have cast doubts on how effective the U.S. strikes were in setting back Iran’s nuclear program. Leaked U.S. intelligence suggested that the damage to Iran’s nuclear program may not be as severe as Trump has stated. CIA director John Ratcliffe said on Wednesday that the sites had been “severely damaged” by the U.S. strikes, and that it would take years to be rebuilt. Amid the debate, the White House has put out statements arguing Trump’s stance that the facilities were “obliterated,” labelling reports to the contrary as “fake news.”

But some Democrats left a classified meeting with lingering questions over the effectiveness of the strikes.

“There’s no doubt there was damage done to the program, but the allegations that we have obliterated their program just don’t seem to stand up to reason,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut on Thursday. “To me, it still appears that we have only set back the Iranian nuclear program by a handful of months.”

When asked about concerns of Iran having “secret nuclear sites” at Friday’s press conference, Trump said he was “not worried about it at all.”

“They’re exhausted. The last thing they’re thinking about right now is nuclear,” he told reporters. “You know what they’re thinking of? They’re thinking about tomorrow, trying to live in such a mess. The place was bombed to hell.”

Read More: Key Takeaways From the 2025 NATO Summit

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Friday that Trump needs to retire his “disrespectful” tone towards Khamenei if he wants a deal to be struck between the U.S. and Iran.

“If President Trump is genuine about wanting a deal, he should put aside the disrespectful and unacceptable tone towards Iran’s Supreme Leader, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and stop hurting his millions of heartfelt followers,” he said. “The great and powerful Iranian people, who showed the world that the Israeli regime had no choice but to run to ‘Daddy’ to avoid being flattened by our missiles, do not take kindly to threats and insults.”

Araghchi was referencing remarks made by NATO chief Mark Rutte who, during the NATO Summit on Wednesday, referred to Trump as the “daddy” who had to intervene in the conflict between Israel and Iran.

Amid the back-and-forth between Trump and Iran, on Saturday, thousands of mourners gathered in Tehran for the funerals of top Iranian military commanders and scientists that were killed in the Israeli strikes. According to reports, crowds chanted “death to” Israel and America.

Araghchi paid tribute to those who had been killed, and went on to tell Iranians on Saturday that the “pride of a nation is paramount,” pledging that Iran would return to “new glory and greater strength.”

As the funerals took place, Khamenei spoke out via a post on his Farsi-language social media account, sharing a message that translated to: “The Iranian nation should know that the reason for the opposition to America is that they want Iran to surrender, and this is a great insult to the Iranian nation by the Americans, and such a thing will never happen.”

Questions remain over the true damage to Iran’s nuclear program. But as conflicting comments and reports come in from the Trump Administration and Pentagon intelligence estimates, one thing is certain: Trump’s failed diplomacy got us in this mess. 

I should know. Ten years ago, I was in Vienna as part of the U.S. team negotiating a deal to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. 

Those negotiations culminated in the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was Trump’s decision in 2018 to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal that ultimately led to the perilous situation in the Middle East today. 

The JCPOA was the result of a sustained campaign of principled, effective U.S. diplomacy. President Obama began laying groundwork for this nuclear deal as soon as he came to office in 2009. His view—shared then and now across the U.S. political spectrum—was that the U.S. cannot accept a nuclear-armed Iran. At the time, Iran claimed that its nuclear energy program was for exclusively peaceful uses. Yet given evidence of Iran’s past interest in possessing a nuclear bomb prior to 2003, the U.S. could not take this claim at face value.

To get the nuclear deal, Obama and his national security team rallied the world to increase pressure on Tehran. The U.S., E.U., and other allies put in place punishing sanctions. The U.N. Security Council followed suit with a fresh round of sanctions in June 2010 that were wide-ranging and targeted the nuclear program. 

These sanctions worked: they convinced Iran to come to the negotiating table. To iron out the technical provisions of a deal, the U.S. then put together a team of top career diplomats, nuclear scientists, lawyers, and sanctions experts. It was a remarkable lineup of American patriots and professionals. It was my great honor to serve on that team.

Our goal was to offer Iran phased and reversible sanctions relief in exchange for far-reaching limits on Iran’s nuclear activities. To maximize leverage, we coordinated with other countries, including not just European allies but also Russia and China. It was difficult, exacting, high-stakes work—for months on end.

The effort paid off. Iran agreed to substantial limits on its nuclear activities, including to export out of the country around 98% of its enriched uranium stockpile. Iran’s commitments were then subject to intrusive and permanent international monitoring. By the end of the Obama Administration, the deal was working, with all sides implementing their commitments. 

Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 led to the predictable result: Iran’s nuclear program surged ahead, breaking free of the deal’s constraints.

When Trump returned to office in January, he launched a hasty effort to negotiate a new deal. But it bore a striking resemblance to the deal negotiated by Obama, with one nuclear expert calling the Trump framework a “dollar store JCPOA.”

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu tanked these talks with airstrikes on June 12. The U.S. launched its own strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. 

Trump seems convinced the matter is now resolved. But what will be the fate of the tons of enriched uranium that Iran stockpiled after Trump withdrew from the JCPOA? How much Iranian nuclear infrastructure remains intact? Will Iran ever welcome back intrusive international monitoring of its nuclear activities, such as specified in the JCPOA?

To resolve these questions, the Trump Administration will need to do the tedious, difficult work of pursuing complex negotiations. Talks look set to resume next week.

But it will require a high level of technical expertise and diplomatic capacity. And the timing couldn’t be worse, as Trump and Elon Musk’s culture war on the so-called “Deep State” has hollowed out and demoralized the ranks of government experts whose support was critical to achieving the JCPOA in the first place. 

This sad saga has reminded me of what we’ve lost in the Trump era. The JCPOA was a product of effective and principled American diplomacy, undertaken in close coordination with our closest allies. It was a team effort by countless government professionals and specialists, all motivated by patriotism and a sense of mission, and operating in an era where they were celebrated not denigrated. It was a victory of dialogue and diplomacy over bluster and bombs.

Ten years ago that approach delivered results for the American people and the world. I worry about what comes next.

Greetings from London. A week of interviews, events, and meetings—both on the record and behind closed-doors—at the city’s Climate Action Week has left me with many reflections, but one stands out: the climate work goes on, but the U.S. is no longer at the center of the universe.

That reality is evident almost just from the scale. The organizers tout 700 events and 45,000 participants spread across the sprawling London metropolis. This was the biggest London climate week yet, and the first time for many (myself included). 

But it was also evident in the meat of the conversations. Investors talked about opportunities outside the U.S., particularly in Asia and Europe. Climate focused executives waffled about how much of a presence they wanted to have at this year’s iteration of New York Climate Week, usually an important moment on the climate calendar each September. And British officials emphasized their ability to serve as a global hub for sustainable finance. “As investors look around the world and they look for places to put capital, I think we sit in a very good position because of what’s happening geopolitically,” says Chris Hayward, policy chairman of City of London, the historic center of London, now best known as a financial hub.

Read more: How Soon Should Companies Prepare for a 2°C World?

To get from event to event in London required dashing around the city in the quickest fashion: typically the tube subway system, consistently overheated given the unseasonably hot London temperatures. But the geographic center of the week was undeniably the City of London, the one square mile that hosts the country’s premier banking and financial institutions. There’s a reason for that: organizers in London see an economic opportunity in supporting the energy transition. 

And that’s at the core of the global shift visible here in London. The companies that gathered this week have, for the most part, doubled down on efforts to make or save money with climate and sustainability initiatives—whether that’s an industrial company cutting bills with energy efficiency or a financial firm creating new products to allow companies to invest in renewable power. 

The reality of this profit-oriented approach means the U.S. will fall behind given the policy uncertainty. The observation was underscored by data released throughout the week. A survey of business executives globally, released by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) and Bain & Company to coincide with the event, found that large global companies are continuing to invest in green solutions—but are shifting those investments away from the U.S. toward Europe and Asia. Three quarters of surveyed companies said they were increasingly interested in focusing on those regions.

Even still, that’s not to say that climate work in the U.S. is dead. The report from WBCSD found that 50% of companies now have less interest in investing in climate work in the U.S. That’s a striking figure when contrasted with the global picture. At the same time, it means a significant fraction of global companies continue to see potential.

Read more: Brazil’s Finance Chief Sees Climate Change as an Economic Opportunity

In background chats I had, many American business and financial sector leaders were quick to share that they continue to find opportunities to cut emissions in a way that saves them money—though several expressed fear that talking about it publicly could prompt scrutiny from the administration. “Businesses are not giving up on the decarbonization journey,” says Peter Bakker, president and CEO of WBCSD, “depending on where businesses are stationed, they are more or less willing to talk about it.”

And I was surprised by the response to my informal, totally anecdotal poll about this year’s New York Climate Week. In conversations, I asked sustainability executives how they planned to approach the gathering this year. While many said they had considered pulling out, the vast majority said that they have ultimately decided they still plan to show up—perhaps with a smaller footprint than in years past.

The calibration of the message in New York this fall will be interesting, to say the least. In more than a decade on this beat, I have never felt more of a reluctance from business leaders to speak on the record. Many long standing sources preferred to talk without attribution, wary of the political consequences of speaking truthfully even while they eagerly highlighted their work to me.  

While that makes it more challenging to clearly tell the full story of what’s happening, I suppose it’s somewhat good news if your biggest concern is whether companies are still focused on capping emissions.

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