The LuLac Edition #5, 531, December 29th, 2025

 

TOP INTERNATIONAL STORIES 2025

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1. THE FIRST AMERICAN POPE 

The Roman Catholic Church has had 267 popes. Until 2025, not one of them had been from North America, let alone the United States. That changed in May. On April 21, the ailing Pope Francis died suddenly after suffering a stroke. He had been pope for a dozen years. The Roman Catholic Church then entered a period it calls the interregnum, which lasts until a new pope is selected. Following time-honored tradition, the 133 cardinals eligible to participate assembled in Rome for a conclave, the formal process for selecting the next pope. The first three ballots saw black smoke emerge from the Sistine Chapel’s chimney, signifying that no one had achieved the  necessary two-thirds support. Then on the fourth ballot, the smoke turned white. The conclave had selected Cardinal Robert Prevost. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago and a graduate of Villanova University, he spent more than two decades in Peru, first doing missionary work and then as Bishop of Chiclayo. In 2023, he moved to Rome to become prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which oversees the selection of most bishops, and was subsequently made a cardinal. Prevost became the first member of the Augustinian religious order, which was founded in 1244, to become pope. Upon being installed, he took the name Leo XIV to recall the example of Pope Leo XIII, the author of the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (“Revolutionary Change”) that called for improving the lot of the working class. 

2.           DONALD TRUMP DISRUPTS U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Is making good on your word always a good thing? Donald Trump vowed in 2024 to overhaul U.S. foreign policy. He can now say, “Promises Made. Promises Kept.” His disruptions began even before he took office when he declared his desire to acquire Greenland, make Canada the fifty-first state, and reassert control over the Panama Canal. On Inauguration Day, he withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement and the World Health Organization, restricted refugee readmissions, and designated drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. In his first month in office, he began shuttering the U.S. Agency for International Development, ending independent oversight of major federal agencies, and slashing government payrolls. On April 2, he launched “Liberation Day,” imposing 10 percent tariffs on most imports along with additional country specific tariffs of up to 50 percent. Trump claimed credit for convincing NATO members to spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense and for ending eight foreign wars. He failed, however, to end the war in Ukraine, and to the surprise of his non-interventionist supporters, he threatened Venezuela with regime change. Earlier this month, he released a National Security Strategy that provided a strategic logic for his actions. Critics found much to fault in what Trump did: his tariffs hurt U.S. consumers and producers, his Ukraine peace plan rewarded Russia for its aggression, many of the conflicts he claims to have ended continue, and his downsizing of the national security bureaucracy left the U.S. government greatly weakened. One thing, however, has become clear: Trump has ended the era of Pax Americana. That reality brings to mind Joni Mitchell’s haunting lyrics: “You don't know what you've got. Till it's gone.”  

3.           CHINA WEAPONIZES RARE-EARTH MINERALS

Future historians may flag 2025 as the year China established itself as  superpower equal to the United States. For decades, Washington used its economic dominance, particularly of international finance, to advance its foreign policy objectives. In April 2025 and again in October, Beijing showed that it could also weaponize its economic advantages. In its case, the leverage comes from rare-earth minerals essential to a wide range of industrial and military applications. China has worked for years to dominate the rare-earth supply chain; it now controls roughly 60 percent of the world’s rare-earth mining and 90 percent of it refining capacity. China’s willingness to weaponize its dominance was no secret. Beijing curtailed rare-earth exports to Japan in 2010 during a territorial dispute over the Senkaku (or Diaoyu) islands. Despite the warning, the United States did little to protect itself. When Trump raised tariffs on China in April, Beijing halted the export of magnets and seven rare earth minerals to the United States. Within a month, Trump scaled back his tariffs. In October, after Trump imposed additional restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductor chips and technology to China, Beijing imposed new regulations on the export of products using Chinese rare earth minerals. Faced with a potentially substantial disruption to the U.S. economy, Trump delayed implementation of his export controls and abandoned several other measures aimed at China. Beijing in turn delayed implementation of its October regulations for one year, suggesting that the rare-earth threat continues to hang over the United States.  

4.           THE UNITED STATES BROKERS A GAZA PEACE PLAN

After two years of brutal fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed in October to a ceasefire. It was the second of the year. The Biden administration negotiated a ceasefire in January that increased humanitarian aid to Gaza, led Hamas to release thirty-three hostages, and prompted Israel to free nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The respite from the fighting ended in mid March after the two sides disagreed on the terms of an extension. President Donald Trump played a central role in pushing for the October ceasefire, with Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt also helping mediate. The agreement laid out a three phase peace plan for Gaza: 1) an immediate ceasefire with Israeli security forces withdrawing to preset lines and an exchange of hostages and prisoners; 2) the demilitarization of Hamas and the dispatch of an international stabilization force to Gaza; and 3) the reconstitution of Palestinian governance and the reconstruction of Gaza. The United States considers phase one completed, though Israel insists that it will not move to phase two until the last Israeli hostage is released. The UN Security Council endorsed the Gaza peace plan in November, authorizing the deployment of the International Stabilization Force, and calling for the establishment of a Palestinian Committee to manage Gaza’s day-to-day governance. A lasting peace, however, remains elusive. Hamas shows no signs of disarming, Israel has resumed strikes in Gaza, and no country has yet formally committed to contribute troops to the International Stabilization Force. 

5.           CANADA AND ANNEXATION

The people anxiously sipping hot chocolate in the Canadian Embassy in Washington on a cold night in January almost a year ago couldn’t have predicted the roller-coaster of trade provocations and bilateral blow-ups the next 12 months would bring.

In hindsight, that unusually chilly Washington evening foreshadowed how the Canada-U.S. relationship would soon freeze over.

Trum’s tariff threats and his talk of annexing Canada had already rattled Canadian politics over the preceding weeks. A rushed trip to Mar-a-Lago in early November 2024 failed to mend former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s already rocky relationship with the incoming U.S. president.

On Jan. 20, the day of his second inauguration, Trump returned to the Oval Office to announce his “America First” trade policy. Just weeks later, he announced sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports.

By early February, it was obvious to everyone the relationship Canadians thought they had with their closest neighbour was over.

Former foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly called on “every single political leader across the board, across the country, to stand united because, now more than ever, we need to make sure that we put country first.”

It was all happening amid a swift domestic political upheaval that saw Trudeau, weakened by poor polling and internal Liberal party dissent, announce on Jan. 6 he would resign as prime minister as soon as a new Liberal leader was chosen.

Mark Carney became party leader in March, and almost immediately launched an election, forming a minority government following a campaign that centred on Trump.

Trump’s tariffs — which don’t apply to goods compliant with the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement on trade, known as CUSMA — hit Canada in March.

They were boosted to 35 per cent in August as Trump complained about Canada’s retaliatory tariffs and supply management in the dairy sector, and claimed Ottawa hadn’t done enough to stop the very modest cross-border flow of fentanyl.

The president’s separate Section 232 tariffs on specific industries, such as steel, aluminum, automobiles, copper and lumber, have also hit Canada hard.

Trump took his trade war global in April with his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every nation. World leaders raced to respond. Some signed frameworks of trade agreements that promised massive investments in the United States in exchange for slightly lower tariff rates.

The speed and scale of Trump’s trade war with the world caught everyone off guard, said Fen Osler Hampson, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa and co-chair of the Expert Group on Canada-U.S. Relations.

 sident toned down his annexation talk after Carney’s election, every deadline for a trade deal since then has come and gone, with no clear progress.

Talks remain stalled.

Carney suspended Canada’s digital sales tax, tightened border security, dropped most retaliatory tariffs and boosted defence spending in an unsuccessful effort to get Trump to drop his tariffs.

Until recently, however, a swift breakthrough on tariffs seemed possible.

Carney and Trump complemented each other and bantered for the news crews during two cordial meetings at the White House. Media reports suggested in mid-October some sort of framework for a deal easing tariffs was in the works.

It all went sideways in October when Trump, offended by an Ontario-sponsored TV ad quoting former U.S. president Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs, shut down trade talks.

Canada and the United States have had disagreements throughout their shared history, Hampson said, but in the decades after the introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement, most observers expected the continent to grow more integrated.

“That’s no longer true,” he said. “We increasingly look like three countries going our own separate ways.”

For many Canadians, the past year has felt like an existential crisis — an extended, numbing assault on this country’s sovereignty and stability. In the United States, the shattered relationship with Canada has had less of an impact.

Americans who support the Trump administration see it doing what they voted for — even if it means Canada getting caught up as collateral damage. For Trump’s opponents, the president’s actions have driven a wave of alarming change they struggle to keep up with — and Canadian concerns aren’t necessarily their priority.

(Foreign Policy, CTLuLac)