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There was a lot of buzz this week, in the Catholic world and beyond, after the Vatican gave long-expected official confirmation of plans for a papal visit to Latin America. The three-nation tour will include stops in Argentina, Uruguay, and Peru – where the man we now know as Pope Leo XIV lived and served for many years as a missionary priest and bishop. Many people are pointing out that Pope Leo XVI will be visiting Argentina early in his pontificate, even though Pope Francis never set foot in his homeland after his election to the papacy in 2013. Some have also noted that Leo is doing this before he himself visits his birthplace, the United States. There have even been efforts to spin the decision as a papal snub of the sitting U.S. president, Donald Trump, who has certainly been frequently – and harshly – critical of the reigning pontiff. Trump has been upset by the pontiff not supporting his war against Iran and has said on multiple occasions that the pope thinks it is “OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Trump has also said Leo is “weak on crime.” Press reports have frequently read Leo’s remarks on a host of issues – from global peace to immigration, corruption, and the rule of law – through a “Trumpian” lens, as though they were more-or-less thinly veiled digs at the president. Leo has rejected such interpretations, and frankly, he has the receipts. After Trump attacked the pope on social media just as the pontiff was leaving for Africa, the press tried to place his remarks at various African events in a Trumpian register. Asked whether he was replying to Trump, the pope noted that his speeches for the events on the continent had been written weeks ahead of Trump’s social media screeds. RELATED: Trump’s latest attack on Leo XIV isn’t really about the pope Leo has said he is proud to be an American and that he believes in both the founding principles and the promise of his native country. He has also said he thinks of himself not so much as an “American pope,” as he is a pope for everyone, who “happens to be American.” In an interview with NBC on the sidelines of a prayer event in Castel Gandolfo, the papal retreat near Rome, Leo, who has condemned the immigration policies of Donald Trump’s administration, spoke about his own family history in describing his relationship with the United States. “I have great love for America, but I understand my mission as having a very important dimension, which is precisely being pastor of a universal church and having a voice and an opportunity to speak to people throughout the world,” he told the U.S. television network. Also, the fact is that popes are wary of doing anything that could be seen or construed as interfering in any country’s internal democratic processes, and the United States is in a midterm election year. There’s a good chance, however, that the November trip to South America will offer reporters and commentators a news hook for their discussions of Leo’s U.S. roots and his tensions with Trump, indeed a far better one than any they’ve found or contrived so far. Argentina’s President Javier Milei and Peru’s President Keiko Fujimori are both Trump-supporting right-wing populists. Milei was elected in 2023 by a fairly wide margin, while Keiko Fujimori was sworn in at the end of last month, after winning a runoff by a razor’s edge. After Fujimori’s election victory, Peru took steps to join Trump’s Shield of the Americas (SotA), officially America’s Counter Cartel Coalition (ACCC), which his administration set up earlier this year to battle drug cartels both legally and militarily. Most of the Shield’s dozen members have conservative leaders who align themselves with Trump. Milei was one of the founding signatories to the organization. RELATED: From ‘The Lion’ to ‘The Tiger’, Conservative Trump allies gain ground in Catholic Latin America There has been a rightward shift throughout Latin America more broadly, one that may bode well for the increased U.S. activity in the region. Trump has reasserted U.S. interest under what he has dubbed the “Donroe Doctrine” in a nod to the longstanding Monroe Doctrine, which essentially declared the whole of the Americas to be the U.S. geopolitical back yard. “I think for now there are many regional players that are welcoming it,” said Michael Shifter, the head of the nonpartisan Interamerican Dialogue institute and an adjunct professor of Latin American studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, speaking of the shift. “I think nobody wants to pick a fight with the Trump administration in the region, and so they are trying to respond in the best way,” he said. “Some are a little bit more confrontational and pushing back. Some of the bigger countries, like Brazil, can afford to do that,” Shifter told Guy Taylor, the National Security Editor of The Washington Times, in a podcast. “Some of the smaller countries in Central America and in the Caribbean can’t afford to do that,” Shifter also said. In addition to Peru and Argentina, there are several other countries with Trump-supporting leaders: Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Chile, and Costa Rica have presidents that align themselves with the U.S. leader. “I think it’s undeniable that there is a more politically aligned region for President Trump and his policies than there has been before. Much of this is luck, because [in] a lot of these countries, there were leftist presidents that came in before,” Shifter said. “It’s hard to point to many examples where Trump himself has really been instrumental in this turn,” he said. Of course, large countries like Mexico and Brazil have leftist leaders (as does Uruguay), but Shifter says the fact that many nations in Latin America are very much politically aligned with Trump “obviously … makes Washington very, very happy.” “They see a great opportunity in trying to pursue deeper ties with all these countries,” he said. Pope Leo is scheduled to arrive in the region on Nov. 6, just three days after U.S. midterm elections. The latest polls show the Democratic Party will likely capture control of the House of Representatives. The U.S. president last month said the Nov. 3 elections were “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen.” Trump has a tendency of making himself the center of attention, and the pontiff will be visiting a region in which Trumpist policies are part of the political climate, at a time when Donald will be at his hottest. Despite Leo’s efforts to not be seen as the “U.S. Pope,” Trump is likely to make the papal trip to Latin America to be about him, somehow, and to keep the media centered on all things Trump. Both the pope and the president are always good for copy, and in November, the press won’t have to work too hard – or even at all – to gin up controversy. The table will be set. Follow Charles Collins on X: @CharlesinRome

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