Trump imposes 10,000% tariff on “woke” Vatican
Pressures Papal Conclave to pick top US Catholic VP Vance to revenge and retribute against Pope Francis
Jeffrey Denny
Just ahead of the funeral of Pope Francis drawing millions of mourners from around the world, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a punitive 10,000% tariff on the Vatican City.
Trump targeted all rosaries, crucifixes, gluten-free, locavore, non-GMO, free-range communion wafers, immaculate water spritzers, non-Trump Bibles, and other Catholic merchandise.
The Trump tariffs threaten to skyrocket basic rosary costs from $1 to $10,000 for most Americans who can’t math tariff impacts.
While the Vatican technically is the smallest country in the world and boasts a GDP and export values rivaling the poorest Trump zip codes, the president is concerned that the “woke radical left-wing lunatic” teachings of Pope Francis will make his MAGA base feel bad about their hate.
In particular, Trump opposes the Francis Vatican’s messages of peace, love, hope, humility, piety, social justice, safeguarding God’s creation by fighting climate destruction, and “infinite dignity for all.” Especially for the destitute in U.S. cities and “shithole” countries, desperate migrants, minority, LGBTQ and other marginalized people, even MAGAs, and anyone who refuses to support Trump due to Christian values.
White House officials say Trump isn’t using the Vatican tariffs as a negotiating ploy, while the president says he is and isn’t at the same time. “It’s just like Schrödinger’s cat,” a DOGE staffer quipped in barely unbridled enthusiasm.
White House sources also reject media attacks that rely on White House sources. Fox News is struggling to say whatever the White House wants.
Making the papacy greater
Trump often said he has more Christian followers than the pope, and boasted that his people believe he’s the Second Coming of Jesus to roast Democrats in eternal hellfire.
At the White House Easter egg roll the afternoon before the pope died, Trump told the children, “People are telling me that I’m better than Jesus because even the Hollywood and media Jews can’t kill me.”
Reacting to the death of Pope Francis, Trump posted on Truth Social, “God loves me more than the pope!!! I’m still alive and have the best health while the pope is dead! I love alive people more than dead people.”
White House sources say Trump is pressuring the Papal Conclave — the gathering of Catholic Cardinals selecting Pope Francis’s successor — to choose the most powerful Catholic in America, Vice President JD Vance.
“The president was impressed by how his vice president stood up to the so-called pontiff and the disgraceful disrespect he showed America by his moral sermonizing about mass deportations,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Fighting fake papal news
Leavitt was asked about White House leaks that Vance, one of the last people to see Pope Francis alive, deployed utter blasphemy to cause the pontiff’s deadly heart attack and stroke so Trump could annex the Vatican and rule 1.6 billion Catholics around the world.
“This is what the media does — they take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations,” Leavitt said.
Despite attending Catholic high school and college, Leavitt was proud to attack the pope on Trump’s behalf. She denied she’s a “Catholic girl” who the noted religious philosopher William Martin Joel, an honorary doctorate from leading colleges, said started “much too late.”
Yet Leavitt realized “sooner or later it comes down to fate,” and Trump “might as well be the one” because “only the good die young,” she said.
Vance, planning ahead for Pope Francis’s certain death, has been crowd-sourcing papal names with staff, close friends, and the mirror in the bathroom. He’s reportedly leaning toward Pope Donald the Best after his patron saint.
Vatican communications staff and consultants are feverishly deleting any reference on their websites to anything that Trump might regard as “woke.”
Jeffrey Denny is a Washington writer.
