Andreas Kluth, Columnist

America’s Global Rizz Is Going Up in Smoke

April 17, 2026 at 9:30 AM UTC

Andreas Kluth is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US diplomacy, national security and geopolitics. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Handelsblatt Global and a writer for the Economist.

An esoteric approach to soft power.
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

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Soft power: An American pope understands and wields it; an American president does not understand it and keeps destroying it.

Those two have been at it for a while. Their differences run deep. Pope Leo XIV is clear that God hates war, including the one that Donald Trump launched for no good reason in Iran. The president and his secretary of war seem to relish violence as long as they’re the ones doling it out.