Pope Leo XIV may be the most prominent and respected figure abroad who is increasingly critical of President Trump. But he’s far from alone. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva this week mocked Trump for his unpopularity with voters abroad, telling reporters it would help Lula electorally if Trump interjected himself into Brazilian politics as the American president has in Hungary and other nations.
There’s more. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blasted Trump for his repeated criticism of the pope. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “fed up” with Trump. Even Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, once an admirer of Trump and a Mar-a-Lago habitué, distanced himself from the American president, telling the Financial Times, “I happen to know him, but that’s by the by.”
From the left (Lula), center (Starmer, Leo), and right (Farage, Meloni), Trump is taking it on the chin. World leaders, particularly Europeans, disliking Trump is nothing new. Some have been complaining about him for a decade. But the disdain for the U.S. president is now more open and blunt than earlier in his second term, the dismissal of his ideas more direct and unequivocal.
This shift matters for two reasons. American presidents are much less constrained by courts and Congress on foreign affairs compared to domestic policy. But other countries can blunt a president’s international goals—and that’s happening now to Trump. Secondly, Trump’s domestic opponents are helped if they’re joined by a chorus of international critics. The mainstream media may downplay congressional Democrats’ latest rebuke of the president. It’s harder to ignore those same comments from the pontiff or the right-wing leader of another country like Meloni.
The war in Iran is the immediate cause of this rising anti-Trump sentiment abroad. While we don’t have many surveys measuring support for the war in various countries, all indications are that it’s very unpopular almost everywhere. So their presidents and prime ministers aren’t eager to align with Trump on this issue. The surge in energy prices because of the war has created a huge economic and political problem for these leaders. And Trump blasting Leo over the pontiff’s criticism of the war inevitably resulted in backlash from Lula and Meloni, whose countries have huge Catholic populations. Put this all together, and Trump is insisting that other world leaders enthusiastically support a war that they in fact have little incentive to support at all. Of course they are frustrated with him.
But it’s not just the war in Iran. Center and center-left European leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron have long felt that the U.S. president is trying to bully them on trade and other issues. Lula and other Central and South American leaders on the left are both furious and threatened by Trump’s overthrow of the Maduro regime in Venezuela earlier this year.
And for right and far-right leaders who might be more ideologically in tune with Trump, his unpopularity with voters in their countries makes breaking with the American president a political necessity. For Meloni, who once touted her close relationship with the president, Trump bashing the pope provided a perfect opportunity for her to criticize the American. In Germany, officials of the far-right Alternative for Deutschland, or AfD, have sharply criticized the war in Iran, and perhaps more tellingly have reportedly discouraged party members from publicly touting their visits to the United States to meet with Trump-aligned Republican politicians. In Britain, Trump is now being dissed not only by Farage, who a few months ago was using the slogan “Make Britain Great Again,” but by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, once one of Trump’s strongest allies abroad.
This open disavowal of the American president could reshape politics both at home and abroad. Trump rejects most international cooperation, particularly with European democracies. But as the war with Iran is showing, America can’t unliterally conduct foreign policy. Starmer’s wariness about the United States using British bases abroad has complicated the war effort. It’s harder for the U.S. and Israel to make forceful demands in negotiations with Iran when it’s clear that so many other countries aren’t on board with America’s strategy. And the spread of far-right politics across the globe could be stemmed if Trump is considered not a political genius but a pariah, reviled by voters everywhere and seen as an enemy of one of the world’s most respected leaders in Leo.
The disavowals of Trump abroad are also important here at home because of the unique dynamics of American politics in 2026. Right now, Democratic Party officials are wary of being cast as reflexively anti-Trump. Nonpartisan figures in the United States, such as journalists and academics, don’t want to be seen as biased against the twice-elected president. And Republican Party officials and GOP voters largely back whatever Trump does. So as a result, no matter how crazy Trump behaves, criticism of him is often either muted (journalists) or ignored (Democrats).
But bringing in the views of the Pope, Starmer, Farage, Macron, Meloni, and others abroad changes the conversation. These people can’t be accused of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome” for a decade. Many of them weren’t in power in his first term. Others have either at times praised the president (Farage, Meloni) or at least tried to downplay differences with him (Starmer). Some of these new critics are ideologically centrist or even conservative. So Representative Hakeem Jeffries can now quote the pope casting Trump as divisive, instead of using his own words. The movement against the Iran war can describe itself as not just American liberals who hate Trump but a transnational coalition that includes far-right parties and politicians abroad. The New York Times can quote leaders abroad who agree with the president on immigration and other issues but still find his behavior erratic.
That Trump is authoritarian with bad judgment is obvious. But having more people from different backgrounds, ideologies, and geographies saying that is extremely useful and powerful.
Ultimately, of course, Trump is likely to ignore all of these critics. Because the U.S. has massive military and economic power, these foreign leaders still have to placate Trump to some extent. And Trump still has three years in office in the most powerful job in the world. But Trump is becoming more isolated and diminished. A year ago, he was not only the twice-elected American president but a leader of what seemed like a growing global far-right movement. Now Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson won’t praise him and Lula is practically begging Trump to come campaign against him in Brazil. Trump’s approval rating has plunged to 38 percent among American voters—and probably 3.8 percent among the foreign leaders that he has to deal with. That is worth celebrating.
