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Opinion: Trump’s support faces its biggest test | CNN

Published

2 years ago

March 26, 2023

Opinion: Trump’s support faces its biggest test | CNN

Editor’s Observe: Signal as much as get this weekly column as a publication. We’re trying again on the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and different retailers.

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—

The Platte River flows eastward by way of Nebraska at depths far too shallow for transport. “In some locations it’s a mile large and three-quarters of an inch deep,” the author Edgar Nye mentioned in 1889, coining a phrase nonetheless in use.

Final week, as former President Donald Trump’s authorized troubles continued to mount, so did a elementary query concerning the 2024 Republican presidential marketing campaign. Is Trump’s assist within the GOP rock-solid, as instructed by the various social gathering figures who rushed to his protection and the followers who attended his rally Saturday – or is it solely a mile large and an inch deep?

If prosecutors in New York Metropolis, Atlanta and Washington carry any fees in opposition to him – and there’s no assurance they may – would it not strengthen his assist or complicate and doubtlessly weaken his marketing campaign for the Republican nomination?

Up to now, Trump is main the pack in early main polling and will even see his numbers develop if he’s arrested – as he predicted final weekend. That arrest has not occurred.

“The hazard going through Republicans is that they may both should bind themselves even tighter to the mast of an intensely polarizing determine, or danger splitting the social gathering by not popping out in his protection,” wrote Patrick T. Brown. “Navigating between these pitfalls would require some willingness to criticize Trump,” he added.

“The extra daring Republicans could attempt to ding Trump for his seamy habits even whereas attacking the politicized prosecution. Considered one of Trump’s presumed rivals for the nomination, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, took a not-so-veiled shot on the former president’s habits,” Brown famous.

“I don’t know what goes into paying hush cash to a porn star to safe silence over some kind of alleged affair,” DeSantis mentioned at the same time as he accused Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg of “pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the workplace.”

If Trump is prosecuted, he may reap short-term beneficial properties, wrote Republican strategist Karl Rove within the Wall Road Journal. “An indictment would doubtless provoke many MAGA Republicans to rally round Mr. Trump, at the very least quickly. His standing in 2024 GOP main polls may enhance as a shoddy case from a left-wing district lawyer is more likely to anger partisans,” however Rove added, “Mr. Trump’s technique seems to focus solely on successful the votes of true believers. However many are struggling Trump fatigue and there weren’t sufficient of them to re-elect him final time.”

“Essentially the most possible results of his present ranting and raving will likely be to persuade extra Republicans that he’s unelectable.”

Nonetheless, Trump “thrives on media consideration,” noticed Julian Zelizer. “That is his main weapon in political fight. He likes to dominate the information cycle, redirect nationwide conversations, lash out at his enemies and eclipse all different points.”

“It doesn’t appear to matter that a lot of the eye is unfavorable. As president, actuality tv star and actual property mogul, Trump has solid himself as a fighter who has warded off people and establishments that he claims are out to get him. That is a vital a part of his political persona: the aggrieved public determine who’s at perpetual conflict with the world round him.”

On Saturday, Trump held his first rally since asserting he’s working for president once more. The situation: Waco, Texas.

As Nicole Hemmer identified, “the rally coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of a siege simply exterior of Waco between spiritual extremists, a sect generally known as the Department Davidians led by David Koresh, and the federal authorities. The 51-day standoff started in February 1993 and led to mid-April with a hearth that killed 76 folks, together with 25 kids … For 3 many years, town’s title has been a touchstone for teams who see the federal authorities not simply as an issue however because the central enemy in a slow-rolling civil conflict.”

“In selecting Waco because the kickoff web site for his marketing campaign rallies, Trump has signaled that his courtship of extremist teams will proceed, and that he sees his position as a pivotal determine within the far-right mythos as central to his efforts to retake the presidency,” Hemmer noticed. A spokesperson for Trump mentioned Waco was chosen as a result of it’s conveniently positioned “to have as many supporters from throughout the state and in neighboring states attend this historic rally.”

For extra on politics:

Jill Filipovic: Florida Republicans’ gorgeous bout of misogyny and ignorance

Arick Wierson: What the remainder of the world realizes about prosecuting former presidents

Geoff Duncan: Trump left Georgia’s GOP in ruins – and now faces the results

Dean Obeidallah: Trump’s dangerous name for protests

Former President Barack Obama did it 12 occasions. Trump did it 10 occasions. Greater than midway by way of his time period, President Joe Biden lastly solid his first veto final week, rejecting a invoice that might have banned managers of retirement funds from contemplating environmental, social and governance (ESG) considerations in selecting investments.

Witold Henisz, who directs the ESG initiative on the Wharton Faculty of the College of Pennsylvania, wrote in favor of contemplating such elements: “the logic right here is easy and something however political. The worth of some belongings relies upon, for example, on the diploma of worldwide warming or our success in transitioning to wash vitality.”

The issue with ESG investing, noticed Sanjai Bhagat, professor of finance on the College of Colorado, is that “analysis has discovered that investor returns are typically decrease from ESG investing in comparison with non-ESG (or conventional) investing.” The invoice Biden vetoed “would have required retirement fund managers to behave as true fiduciaries of middle-class American retirees — focusing solely on monetary returns of their investments and never on environmental and social points.”

Actor Jason Sudeikis not solely performs the character Ted Lasso, he helped develop the quirky, feel-good present of the identical title. On Monday, Sudeikis and different solid members confirmed up on the White Home to speak about psychological sickness. Some Republicans criticized Biden for collaborating within the public relations enterprise.

“The criticism feels out of contact,” wrote Sara Stewart. “Sure, Ted Lasso is a fictional character and sure, ‘Ted Lasso’ is a comedy; it’s additionally considered one of Apple’s hottest exhibits, with what Politico has known as a ‘unusual bipartisan attraction’ that’s led to its being talked about often by politicians from each side of the aisle. And judging from White Home spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre’s response, the solid’s look Monday drew a document variety of reporters to the press room and yielded a ton of protection, all of which included Sudeikis’ feedback about psychological well being…”

“It’s not the substantive motion we have to make psychological well being care extensively accessible. But. However it’s nonetheless a reasonably savvy strategy to get a variety of Individuals considering and speaking about it, which looks like a good step ahead.”

Protests are roiling France over President Emmanuel Macron’s resolution to lift the retirement age from 62 to 64. “From the far-right acolytes of Marine Le Pen to the far left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (unbowed) social gathering,” David A. Andelman famous, “the political sharks are all smelling blood … although the subsequent elections aren’t for one more 4 years.”

The affect could be seen on the streets: Along with demonstrations in opposition to Macron, rubbish collectors went on strike, and greater than 7,000 tons of trash piled up in Paris.

However France, which spends virtually twice as a lot of its GDP on pensions than the US, has a price range drawback and diminished pension spending may assist, Andelman wrote.

Catherine Poisson, a French native who teaches at Wesleyan College in Connecticut, wrote, “For these of us raised in French tradition, work refers to a finite interval of life lasting roughly 40 years. And when that work is finished, you’re nonetheless younger sufficient and match sufficient to take pleasure in one of the best of what life has to supply. It’s the norm that retirement years — or many years really — are spent touring, caring for grandchildren or choosing up new hobbies.”

Shou Zi Chew, chief govt of the immensely in style social community TikTok, failed to steer members of Congress Thursday that his platform is secure for Individuals, regardless of the corporate’s ties to China.

Alex Stamos, former chief safety officer of Fb, wrote that “nationwide safety considerations about TikTok are justified. ByteDance, like every other Chinese language firm, is topic to legal guidelines that compel excessive compliance with the pursuits and dictums of the state. There is no such thing as a First Modification or unbiased judiciary to guard ByteDance executives in the event that they determined to disclaim China’s requests. President Xi has made that clear by taking direct motion in opposition to China’s richest and strongest CEOs.’

TikTok is aware of “an enormous quantity concerning the demographics, pursuits, location, contacts and gadgets of its 1.5 billion customers.” However Stamos argued that the issue is larger than TikTok.

“There is no such thing as a US legislation clearly governing the entry that Beijing or Moscow-based workers of any tech or social media firm should the non-public information of US residents that use their providers. And, there may be at the moment no federal legislation discouraging the overcollection of essential information or personally identifiable data.

“It’s time for Congress to lastly move a complete privateness legislation.”

Privateness isn’t the one subject posed by social media. A research launched final week discovered that the variety of Twitter posts containing antisemitic language doubled after Elon Musk took over Twitter in October.

“Researchers tried to get a remark from Twitter,” Frida Ghitis wrote, “however the response was an e mail exhibiting a poop emoji. That’s the identical response Musk despatched after one other research, again in December, discovered an explosion of racist tweets after he purchased the platform.”

If social media feels too overwhelming, attempt what Tess Taylor did: “a deep social media unplug.”

“Time on-line was making me bored, anxious and grumpy. I used to be falling down consideration rabbit-holes, scrolling for boots once I really wished to play Uno with my children. I used to be shopping for stuff I can’t afford, didn’t want and didn’t even need … I felt susceptible and uncovered to random fury: you may go surfing to love somebody’s new child and instantly be swept up within the day’s melee, like being slammed into rush hour visitors.”

Taylor used a little bit of her offline time to talk with poet Julia Guez. She “had among the finest guidelines for social media use of anybody I talked to,” Taylor wrote.

Guez’s guidelines: “By no means within the morning, by no means in mattress, by no means earlier than mattress, by no means within the bed room. Totally on the practice, with a view to discover out different folks’s excellent news, and amplify it, and generally to then to jot down a letter or really name a good friend who you’ve seen put up one thing and examine in on them.”

Lanhee Chen: The SVB collapse doesn’t should be the primary in a series of many

Deborah Carr: Rupert Murdoch is tying the knot (once more). Why the blowback is misplaced

Mitra Salasel: My father’s expertise with frontotemporal dementia makes me grieve for Bruce Willis’ household

Justin Hansford and Shaq Al-Hijaz: As GOP governors obscure Black historical past, let’s lastly inform the reality about Marcus Garvey

Scott Faber: We’ve been consuming harmful chemical compounds for a lot too lengthy

Revs. William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis: America, cease grinding the faces of the poor

Mike Chinoy: The ‘golden age’ for American journalists in China is over

Chandelis Duster: My endometriosis ache induced me to make an enormous resolution

AND…

For 31 years, the Labrador retriever dominated the canine kingdom as America’s hottest breed. However now it has ceded that title to what Urmee Khan described as “a pint-sized, sedentary, furry gargoyle”—the French bulldog.

Khan shares her London abode with Bertie, one of many newly ennobled breed.

“It will be straightforward to dismiss French bulldogs, with their squidgy, cartoon faces and small squat our bodies, as little greater than a purse accent. Celebrities in all places are photographed toting a child Frenchie in a shoulder bag, or holding one on the finish of an costly designer leash.”

Why the brand new reputation? “Within the post-Covid period, these extra inward-looking occasions name for a pup that’s much less demanding, a pet whose firm you’ll be able to take pleasure in throughout the quiet and solace of your 4 partitions.”

Click to comment

News

Trump’s China deal leaves world exposed to trade policy lottery

Published

3 hours ago

May 12, 2025

Press Room

Trump’s China deal leaves world exposed to trade policy lottery

This article is an on-site version of our Trade Secrets newsletter. Premium subscribers can sign up here to get the newsletter delivered every Monday. Standard subscribers can upgrade to Premium here, or explore all FT newsletters

Well, that didn’t take long. And there was me thinking that China’s resistance to being bounced into a deal — including the insistence that it was the US that had asked for talks — meant it had settled in for a long haul of negotiations. To be clear: the pact, agreed in suitably neutral Switzerland over the weekend, leaves US tariffs on China ludicrously high and asymmetrically so. But that the US was prepared to make a deal so quickly and reduce duties so much suggests more is to come.

Today’s main piece looks at the deals Trump has agreed so far with China and the UK. I also look at the sorry state of overseas aid and development following the news that Bill Gates will wind down his foundation. And now the first reader question for a while: quite simply, were China and the UK right to accept the deals? Answers please to alan.beattie@ft.com.

Get in touch. Email me at alan.beattie@ft.com

Taking the offer or paying the Dane

Trump’s deals with China and the UK have one thing in common, which is — and please sit down if you’re prone to fainting — they’re not binding and they leave a huge amount of negotiation down the line. I know, right? In fact, it’s not 100 per cent clear what they mean now, especially the China deal. As of this newsletter’s “hit send” time, the world’s trade nerds were still pondering over the announcement, trying to work out exactly what had been agreed. The first stab at overall tariffs, including an average for non-China emerging markets and advanced economies, is here, from the consultancy Oxford Economics.

And, of course, they’re subject to crossfire from Trump’s other loose cannons. The other news yesterday was Trump declaring that the US pharmaceutical industry could charge no more in the US than in any other country. Is that on top of the sectoral pharma tariffs he wants? What does it mean for the extensive pharmaceutical trade between the US and both the UK and China? Nobody knows.

Even before that, literally the day after the UK deal was announced, the Trump administration launched yet another so-called Section 232 national security investigation, this time on aircraft, which could end in tariffs. Is the UK pre-exempted from those duties because of the deal? Nobody knows.

In theory the US has left itself quite a lot of leverage. The question is, especially with the threat of financial market turmoil an ever-present, whether it is willing to use it. The UK deal, which explicitly states it is not legally binding, leaves Britain vulnerable to being blackmailed into joint action against China if Washington decrees it. Simon Lester of the International Economic Law and Policy Blog has a great rundown here of the many uncertainties around the pact.

“Both the United States and the United Kingdom recognise that this document does not constitute a legally binding agreement”, the deal reads

With China, the US’s non-reciprocal “fentanyl tariffs” are still high and asymmetrically so. Beijing has an incentive to come back to the negotiating table and agree a further package of liberalisation — or indeed, as Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Sunday, agree to purchase more US exports.

This puts us straight back into the territory of the “phase 1” deal of Trump’s first presidency, in which China supposedly agreed a bunch of liberalising measures. The then US trade representative Robert Lighthizer made a big deal out of these, but they haven’t exactly stopped the US moaning about Chinese state capitalism. Beijing also agreed to buy a load of US soyabeans and other products, which it did not.

Still, if there’s one thing we apparently know, it’s that the US is heading towards negotiating the tariffs down (though it seems to regard the 10 per cent baseline as inviolable). This will set it up for a nice old confrontation with perhaps Trump’s foremost target of ire, the EU, which has continued to insist the 10 per cent minimum is unacceptable.

Partly what happens now will depend on which of Trump’s team has the president’s ear on any given day, given their wildly contrasting views. In the endless game of Trade Official Tombola, you never know who’s going to be rattling round the Oval Office leading policy when decisions come to be made.

If it’s China warrior supreme Peter Navarro, the UK might find itself being led into a trade war and Beijing being denied more tariff cuts. If it’s commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, whose job seems to be to find out what Trump wants that day and cheerlead it, probably less so. Navarro clearly didn’t have much to do with the UK deal, since he was subsequently talking about the UK accepting beef and chicken produced to US hygiene standards, something Sir Keir Starmer’s government wisely refused to accept.

Remember the rules?

Finally, what does this mean for the rules-based world trading system? It’s not great that the US is agreeing bilateral deals all over the place. As I wrote last week, the UK pact is more directly damaging, since it involves violating the “most-favoured nation” principle by granting market access to the US it will not give to other countries.

The metaphor that immediately came to mind was Dane-geld, the protection money that Anglo-Saxon kings paid to Vikings in return for easing off the pillaging for a while.

Rudyard Kipling famously had a downer on this tactic, contending that “we’ve proved it again and again, that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld, you never get rid of the Dane”. (My favourite feedback to my piece on this came from an actual mediaevalist historian, who argues that paying Dane-geld was an entirely sensible thing to do.)

The UK will need to keep scanning the horizon for signs of the striped Viking sails appearing again. It might turn out to be worth the gamble and the violation of MFN, or it might not. China might have hit on a better strategy (admittedly in a very different position), or might have not. Nobody knows anything.

Musk’s barbarians at the Gates

Bill Gates has revealed that he’s going to be accelerating spending and then closing the Gates Foundation, albeit not for 20 years. It’s a poignant moment. Trump’s (and specifically Elon Musk’s) savaging of US development assistance, including the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US programme for HIV-Aids relief, has left the sector gasping for air. Gates (correctly) last week said that Musk was killing children. By running down his fund, Gates hopes to ameliorate the impact of official aid cuts.

The traditional aid donors are turning away. The UK, which has already made a mockery of its aid budget by spending a chunk of the money on housing asylum seekers in Britain, has announced it will cut its spending yet further from 0.5 per cent to 0.3 per cent of gross national income. Former Labour prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, who used to fall over each other competing to announce more aid, seem to have been silent on seeing their work undone, even though Brown had picked a public fight with Musk over the US’s aid cuts just weeks earlier. Not for the first time, Brown’s commitment to courage is stronger in theory than practice.

There’s no doubt the Gates Foundation did a tonne of good. (Disclosure: the FT has received money from Gates in the past.) In particular, being able to work with a longer time horizon than donor governments — which were under pressure to show results within a few years — enabled it to fund programmes such as the elimination of polio, which is slow and unspectacular work.

But it took strong policy and ideological stances, a tactic that sat oddly with its philanthropic mission. The foundation publicly opposed the granting of a waiver on Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic before reversing course, a highly contentious public policy issue to weigh in on.

More generally, the idea of private giving saving the world — remember the “philanthrocapitalism” of two decades ago? — now looks seriously naive. The new generation of tech crypto billionaires were seduced by the quasi-scientific approach of effective altruism, which has come under heavy and deserved criticism. The development sector is full of fear. There are stories of NGOs and think-tanks pulling controversial-sounding research papers or cutting the word “equity” from the title. It turns out it is a lot less independent of the state and governments than it thought.

Charted waters

Customs revenue is rising at US ports, but by nowhere near enough to replace a significant portion of receipts from the federal income tax as Trump wishes.

Line chart of Revenue collected at US customs ($bn) showing Lots of chips and dolls

Trade links

Chinese companies are purging their supply chains of foreign components, in case Trump’s trade war turns into a full-scale decoupling of its economy from the US’s.
Chinese exports jumped in April as its shipping companies pushed goods through ahead of trade talks and tariffs being imposed.
Speaking of which, Wired magazine looks at whether consumers should buy now to beat the tariffs or wait.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has been sent out to try to calm nervy investors. However, they are unlikely to have been reassured that the administration is on top of things by Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, echoing Trump (before the deal with China) that the US doesn’t need a trade deal with China.
My FT colleague Martin Sandbu reminds us that a tax on imports is a tax on exports and will hit US companies selling abroad.

Trade Secrets is edited by Harvey Nriapia

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News

Trump to sign order to cut some U.S. drug prices to match those abroad

Published

4 hours ago

May 12, 2025

Press Room

Trump to sign order to cut some U.S. drug prices to match those abroad

US President Donald Trump participates in a celebration of military mothers in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 8, 2025.

Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

President Donald Trump on Monday will revive a controversial policy that aims to slash drug costs by tying the amount the government pays for some medicines to lower prices abroad, White House officials said.

Trump will sign an executive order including several different actions to renew that effort, known as the “most favored nation” policy.

“For too long, foreign nations have been able to free ride off of the American people, and American patients forced to pay for too much for prescription drugs,” one official told reporters on Monday.

“The president is dead serious about lowering drug prices,” they said.

Shares of U.S. drugmakers dropped in premarket trading Monday ahead of the official announcement. Eli Lilly fell more than 5%, while Pfizer, Merck and Johnson & Johnson dropped more than 2%.

But White House officials did not disclose which medications the order will apply to. They said Monday’s announcement will be broader than a similar policy that Trump tried to push during his first term, which only applied to Medicare Part B drugs.

It’s unclear how effective the policy will be at lowering costs for patients. In a social media post on Monday, Trump claimed drug prices will be cut by “59%, PLUS!”

The order directs the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the Department of Commerce to crack down on “unreasonable and discriminatory policies” in foreign countries that “suppress” drug prices abroad, the officials said. It also directs the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to encourage “most favored nation prices.”

Within 30 days, the secretary will also have to set clear targets for price reductions across all markets in the U.S., according to the officials. That will open up a round of negotiations between HHS and the pharmaceutical industry, officials said, not providing exact details on the nature of those talks.

If “adequate progress” is not made towards those price targets, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will impose the most favored nation pricing on drugs through rulemaking.

The order also directs the Food and Drug Administration to consider expanding imports from other developed nations beyond Canada. Trump signed a separate executive order in April directing the Food and Drug Administration to improve the process by which states can apply to import lower-cost drugs from Canada, among other actions intended to lower drug prices.

It also directs the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to aggressively enforce “anti-competitive actions” that keep prices high in the U.S.

The Department of Commerce will also consider export restrictions that “fuel and enable that low pricing abroad.”

It is Trump’s latest effort to try to rein in U.S. prescription drug prices, which are two to three times higher on average than those in other developed nations – and up to 10 times more than in certain countries, according to the Rand Corporation, a public policy think tank.

The order is a blow to the pharmaceutical industry, which is already bracing for Trump’s planned tariffs on prescription drugs. Drugmakers have argued that the “most favored nation” policy would hurt their profits and ultimately, their ability to research and develop new medicines.

But the policy could help patients by lowering prescription medication costs, which is an issue top of mind for many Americans. More than three in four adults in the U.S. say the cost of medications is unaffordable, according to a KFF poll from 2022.

The industry also lobbied against similar Trump plans during his first term. He tried to push the policy through in the final months of that term, but a federal judge halted the effort following a lawsuit from the pharmaceutical industry. The Biden administration then rescinded that policy.

White House officials initially pressed congressional Republicans to include a “most favored nation” provision in the major reconciliation bill they plan to pass in the coming months, but the policy would have specifically targeted Medicaid drug costs, Politico reported earlier this month. Several GOP members opposed that measure.

How Trump’s order could affect patients, companies

The industry’s largest trade group, PhRMA, estimated that Trump’s Medicaid proposal could cost drugmakers as much as $1 trillion over a decade.

Some health policy experts have said a “most favored nation” drug policy may not be effective at lowering medication costs.

For example, USC experts said the policy “can’t undo the basic economics of the global drug marketplace,” where 70% of pharmaceutical profits worldwide come from the U.S.

“Facing a choice between deep cuts in their U.S. pricing or the loss of weakly profitable overseas markets, we can expect many firms to pull out from overseas markets at their earliest opportunity,” experts said in a report in April.

That will leave Americans paying the same amount for medications, drugmakers with lower profits and future generations of patients with less innovation, they said.

“In sum, everyone loses,” the experts said.

Other experts have said another legal fight with the pharmaceutical industry could prevent the policy from taking effect.

But even if the drug industry pushes back on Trump’s executive order, his administration still has another tool to push down drug prices: Medicare drug price negotiations.

It’s a key provision of the Inflation Reduction Act that gives Medicare the power to negotiate certain prescription drug prices with manufacturers for the first time in history.

Trump last month proposed a change to that policy that drugmakers have long sought. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle could be receptive to the idea, which proposes changing rules that differentiate between small-molecule drugs and biologic medicines.

Trump last week said he plans to announce tariffs on medicines imported into the U.S. within the next two weeks. Those planned levies aim to boost domestic drug manufacturing.

Drugmakers, including Eli Lilly and Pfizer, are pushing back on those potential duties. Some companies have questioned whether the tariffs are necessary, given that several of them have already announced new U.S. manufacturing and research and development investments since Trump took office.

Still, Trump last week doubled down on efforts to reshore drug manufacturing. He signed an executive order that streamlines the path for drugmakers to build new production sites.

Caplan noted that even if the drug industry pushes back on the executive order, the administration still has another tool at its disposal: Medicare drug pricing negotiations.

News

‘Viva Papa Leo!’ At U.S. Masses, Dawn of Homegrown Pope Brings an Air of Electricity.

Published

17 hours ago

May 11, 2025

Press Room

‘Viva Papa Leo!’ At U.S. Masses, Dawn of Homegrown Pope Brings an Air of Electricity.

The Rev. Gosbert Rwezahura opened Mass on Sunday morning by saying what everyone in the pews was thinking. “Habemus papam!” he exclaimed at Christ Our Savior Parish in South Holland, Ill. Beaming, he added, “He is one of our own!”

It was the first Sunday in American history with an American pope seated on the throne of St. Peter in Rome. At parishes across the country, Catholics filed into the pews with a sense of wonder, hope and pride over Pope Leo XIV.

At Christ Our Savior, the pride was personal: Today’s parish was formed from others in the area around the South Side of Chicago that includes a now-closed church where the pope attended as a child.

Father Rwezahura put it simply: “We are the home parish of the pope!”

“I’m so full and so proud, I don’t know what to do,” said Janice I. Sims, 75. “I’m definitely blessed because I lived long enough to see it happen.”

Others there traded anecdotes about brushes with the future pope, back when he was known as Robert Prevost: the music director who played at a wedding he officiated, the deacon who went to high school where his mother was the school librarian.

At the standing-room-only 10:30 a.m. Mass at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, the Rev. Ton Nguyen began his homily by exclaiming “Viva Papa Leo the 14th!” The congregation applauded. Outside the church, yellow and white bunting hung in celebration.

“My heart is overwhelmed with joy that we have an American Pope, and he is from Chicago,” Father Nguyen said.

Catholics at other services around the country were no less ebullient and were starting to think ahead to their hopes for the new papacy. Perhaps Leo could attract more young people to church, inspire more men to become priests or help unify an often fractious Catholic population in his home country. At 69, he could lead the church for decades.

“He already won over the hearts of the whole world,” said Amelia Coto, 70, who was attending a Spanish-language Mass at Gesù Catholic Church in downtown Miami. “We were without a father, but now God gave us this father we desired so much.”

Ms. Coto is from Honduras, and she teared up when talking about Leo. Like others at Spanish-language Masses in Miami on Sunday, she expressed optimism that a Spanish-speaking pope who lived for decades in South America might be able to sway American immigration policy.

“I hope his arrival will help this new president change, stop all those deportations that Trump is doing to Latinos,” she said.

In New Orleans, the pope’s mother’s family had roots in the Black Creole community, where African, Caribbean and French influences blend. In the city this week, social media feeds were overloaded with images of the pope’s face superimposed in everyday New Orleans scenes. Eating a bowl of gumbo. Showing off his footwork in a second-line parade. Popping his head out of a front door to ask, “How’s your mama and dem?”

Angela Rattler, 69, was attending Mass on Sunday at Corpus Christi-Epiphany Catholic Church in the Seventh Ward. When she first heard the pope speak, tears flowed down her face, she said. “He appears to be such a humble man.”

It was Mother’s Day, which is not a Christian holiday but one where church attendance is usually high anyway. Still, the pews seemed especially full at some parishes.

At St. Ann Parish in Coppell, Texas, all 1,300 seats inside were filled, along with a few hundred people seated in a courtyard at Sunday’s 10 a.m. Mass. The Rev. Edwin Leonard planned a homily that emphasized the vocation of motherhood. But then “the Holy Spirit did a beautiful thing,” he told his congregation, and another topic felt more fitting.

“So it is on Mother’s Day that I’m going to speak about the Holy Father,” Father Leonard said.

Among traditionalists, who had a rocky relationship with the open and informal Pope Francis, some wondered whether Pope Leo might reopen broader access to the traditional Latin Mass. Pope Francis cracked down on the traditional Mass, celebrated by Catholics around the world until the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

At a Latin Mass at St. Damien Catholic Church in Edmond, Okla., worshipers expressed cautious optimism about the prospect. “There is no way to be sure what he’ll do,” the Rev. Joseph Portzer said in his homily. “But we do see that some of the first words that he said were to talk about unity in the church.”

Father Portzer was among those who found the pope’s American identity intriguing. “We will have an unusual experience being governed by someone who thinks like an American, a Midwestern American,” he said. “It’s going to mean a lot to us to have an American mind-set governing the church.”

For him, that meant a practicality in governing and the possibility that “we will be able, as well, to understand the way he thinks.”

When Father Leonard in Texas heard the new pope’s name on Thursday, the first thing he did was to look up whether he had political or ideological leanings, he told his congregation.

“Mea culpa,” he said in the only Latin words heard during the Mass. “We should not try to fit our pope into our American liberal or conservative camps. If you did that, shame on us.”

Back at Christ Our Savior in the south suburbs of Chicago, a large population of immigrants from Nigeria worshiped along with white and Black families who have lived on the South Side for decades. The pope’s home parish is now a place that in many ways reflects the global church that its favorite son is now charged with leading. Father Rwezahura is from Tanzania, and the deacon serving with him on the altar on Sunday, Mel Stasinski, has lived in Chicago his whole life.

United by a faith shared by 1.4 billion Catholics around the world, they were also connected by their sheer joy on Sunday. As Diane Sheeran, 70, described how she felt when she got the news about Leo: “I had a grin for two days.”

Reporting was contributed by Robert Chiarito in Chicago; Mary Beth Gahan in Coppell, Texas; Breena Kerr in Edmond, Okla.; Katy Reckdahl in New Orleans; and Verónica Zaragovia in Miami.