Pope Leo sought to downplay his feud with US President Donald Trump on Saturday, saying reporting about comments he has made so far during his Africa tour “has not been accurate in all its aspects”.

Speaking to reporters in English aboard his flight to Angola for the third leg of his ambitious 10-day Africa tour, the first American pope said comments he made two days earlier in Cameroon, decrying that the world was being “ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, were not aimed at Trump.

That speech, said Leo, “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting”.

On Sunday, as the pontiff prepared to embark on his tour, Trump called him “weak on crime, and terrible for foreign policy” in a post on Truth Social.

Trump also posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus-like figure, drawing widespread criticism even from some religious conservatives who typically support him. The post was removed on Monday morning.

Trump appeared to be responding to Leo’s growing criticism in recent weeks of the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Pope Leo said on Monday that he would keep speaking out about the war, and Trump reiterated his criticism on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants”, though he did not mention Trump directly again.

“As it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all,” the pontiff said on Saturday.

Leo, originally from Chicago, kept a relatively low profile for a pope in his first 10 months but has debuted a new forceful speaking style in Africa, sharply denouncing war, inequality and global leaders.

His Africa tour is one of the most complicated ever arranged for a pontiff, with stops in 11 cities and towns in four countries, traversing nearly 18,000 kilometres over 18 flights.

The Trump administration on Saturday renewed a waiver allowing countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil at sea for about a month, even as lawmakers accused the government of going easy on Moscow as its war on Ukraine grinds on.

The United States Treasury Department’s waiver lets countries purchase Russian oil and petroleum products loaded on vessels as of Friday through May 16. It replaces a 30-day waiver that expired on April 11 and excludes transactions involving Iran, Cuba and North Korea.

The move is part of the administration’s effort to control global energy prices that have shot higher during the US-Israeli war with Iran. It came after countries in Asia, suffering from the global energy shock, pressed Washington to allow alternative supplies to reach markets.

Reversal by treasury

“As negotiations (with Iran) accelerate, Treasury wants to ensure oil is available to those who need it,” a Treasury Department spokesperson said.

Just two days earlier, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington would not be renewing the waiver for Russian oil and another for Iranian oil, which is set to expire on Sunday.

Global oil prices tumbled 9 per cent on Friday to about $90 a barrel after Iran temporarily reopened the Strait of Hormuz, an oil choke point in the Gulf. But the war has already created the worst global energy supply disruption in history, the International Energy Agency has said.

The war, which entered its eighth week on Saturday, has damaged more than 80 oil and gas facilities in the Middle East, and Tehran has warned it could close the strait again if the recent US Navy blockade of Iranian ports continued.

High oil prices are a threat to President Donald Trump’s fellow Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump has also faced pressure from partner countries on the oil price.

A US source said partner countries on the sidelines of Group of 20, World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington this week had requested the US extend the waiver. And he spoke about oil this week in a call with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a big purchaser of Russian oil.

The waiver on Iranian oil, which the Treasury Department issued on March 20, allowed about 140 million barrels of oil to reach global markets and helped relieve pressure on energy supply, Bessent said last month.

Lasting damage

US lawmakers from both political parties had slammed the administration over the sanctions waivers, saying they stood to help the economy of Iran while it was at war with the US and of Russia as it was at war with Ukraine.

The waivers could impede the West’s efforts to deprive Russia of revenue for its war in Ukraine and put Washington at odds with its allies. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said now is not the time to relax sanctions against Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev said an extension of the US waiver will affect another 100m barrels of Russian oil, bringing the total volume affected by both waivers to 200m barrels.

Dmitriev, who travelled to the US on April 9 for meetings with members of the Trump administration ahead of the previous waiver expiry, said on his Telegram channel that the extension faced “active political opposition”.

Brett Erickson, a sanctions expert at the consulting firm Obsidian Risk Advisors, said Friday’s renewal is likely not the last waiver Washington will issue.

“The conflict has done lasting damage to global energy markets, and the tools available to stabilise them are nearly exhausted,” Erickson said.

Former captain Sarfaraz Ahmed has been appointed as head coach for the two-match Test series in Bangladesh next month, the Pakistan Sports Board (PCB) said on Saturday.

The first of the two matches – part of the ICC World Test Championship — will be played at Sher-i-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in Dhaka from May 8 to 12, while Sylhet International Cricket Stadium will host the second Test, which will be played from May 16 to 20.

Sarfaraz, who led Pakistan to the Champions Trophy title in 2017, has worked with the under-19 team as well as Pakistan Shaheens after his retirement.

Since Australian Jason Gillespie quit as Pakistan’s red-ball coach in December 2024, Aaqib Javed and Azhar Mahmood temporarily guided the team led by Shan Masood, who will continue as captain in Bangladesh.

Pakistan have named four uncapped players — Abdullah Fazal, Amad Butt, Azan Awais and Muhammad Ghazi Ghori — to their 16-member squad for the Bangladesh series starting in Dhaka on May 8.

Sarfaraz’s former teammate Umar Gul will join him in the setup as the bowling coach.

Among the squad, five players — Azan Awais, Imamul Haq, Muhammad Ghazi Ghori, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan are currently taking part in the ongoing NCA Red-Ball Camp in Lahore, the PCB noted.

The players will undergo a camp in Karachi and will assemble on April 27. The camp will conclude on May 1, with the players scheduled to fly to Bangladesh the next day, according to PCB.

Pakistan test squad: Shan Masood (captain), Abdullah Fazal, Amad Butt, Azan Awais, Babar Azam, Hasan Ali, Imamul Haq, Khurram Shahzad, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan (wicketkeeper), Muhammad Ghazi Ghori (wicketkeeper), Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, Salman Agha, Saud Shakeel and Shaheen Afridi.

Seven weeks of war have failed to topple Iran’s theocratic rulers or force them to meet all of President Donald Trump’s demands, but for US adversaries and allies it has cast a spotlight on one of his central vulnerabilities: economic pressure.

Even with Iran’s announcement on Friday that it was reopening the Strait of Hormuz to shipping, the Middle East crisis has revealed the limits of Trump’s willingness to tolerate domestic economic pain.

Trump joined Israel in attacking Iran on February 28 based on what he said were imminent security threats, especially over its nuclear programme. But now, with US gasoline prices high, inflation rising and his approval ratings down, Trump is racing to secure a diplomatic deal that could stem the fallout at home.

Iran has taken a beating militarily, but demonstrated it can exact economic costs that Trump and his aides underestimated, unleashing the worst-ever global energy shock, analysts say.

Rising energy costs, recession risk

Trump has often publicly shrugged off domestic economic concerns driven by the war.

But he can hardly ignore that, though the US does not depend on the one-fifth of global oil shipments that were effectively blocked by Iran’s chokehold on the strait, surging energy costs have hit US consumers. The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) warning of a risk of global recession adds to the gloom.

Pressure for a way out of the unpopular war has mounted as Trump’s fellow Republicans defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections.

None of this has been lost on Iran’s leaders, who have used their grip on the strait to push Trump’s team to the negotiating table.

Analysts say US rivals China and Russia may draw their own lesson: while Trump has shown an appetite for military force in his second term, he looks for a diplomatic off-ramp as soon as the economic heat becomes uncomfortable at home.

Trump is feeling the economic pinch, which is his Achilles heel in this war of choice, said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration who heads the Global Situation Room strategic consultancy.

White House spokesman Kush Desai said that while working toward a deal with Iran to resolve “temporary” energy market problems, the administration “has never lost focus on implementing the president’s affordability and growth agenda”.

“President Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.

Feeling the pressure

Trump’s abrupt shift on April 8 from airstrikes to diplomacy followed pressure from financial markets and parts of his MAGA base.

Some of the economic pain is borne by US farmers, a key Trump constituency, due to disrupted fertiliser shipments, and is also reflected in higher airfares from increased jet fuel prices.

With the clock ticking on a two-week ceasefire, it remains to be seen whether a president who embraces unpredictability will reach a deal that meets his war goals, extend the truce beyond April 21, or relaunch the bombing campaign.

But global oil prices fell sharply and financial markets, which Trump often sees as a barometer of his success, flourished on Friday after Iran said the strait would be open for the remainder of a separate US-brokered 10-day truce between Israel and Lebanon.

Trump was quick to declare the strait safe as he touted a deal-in-the-making with Iran that he said would be completed soon and mostly on his terms. But Iranian sources told Reuters gaps remained to be resolved.

Experts have warned that even if the war ends soon, the economic damage could take months if not years to fix.

A key question is whether any deal achieves the objectives Trump has laid out, including closing Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has long denied it is seeking.

Iran has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium believed to have been buried by US-Israeli strikes in June. Trump told Reuters on Friday the emerging deal calls for the US to work with Iran to recover the material and bring it to the US. Iran denied agreeing to a transfer anywhere outside its territory.

A senior Trump administration official said the US was maintaining “several redlines” in negotiations with Iran.

At the same time, Trump’s call at the war’s outset for Iranians to overthrow their government has gone unheeded.

Allies from Europe to Asia were initially stunned by Trump’s decision to go to war without consulting them or seeming to take into account the risk to them of Iran closing the strait.

The alarm bell ringing for allies right now is how the war has highlighted that the administration can act erratically, without much regard for consequences, said Gregory Poling, an Asia expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former Democratic President Joe Biden was cautious about imposing sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector out of concern for reducing oil supplies and inflating US gas prices.

But Trump, who ran for a second term on promises of cheap gas and low inflation, has shown himself sensitive to accusations that his policies raise prices. An example was when he reduced tariffs on China last year after it retaliated.

Miscalculations

Just as Trump misjudged Beijing’s response in a trade war, he seems to have miscalculated how Iran might strike back economically in a shooting war - by attacking energy infrastructure in Gulf states and blocking the strategic waterway between them.

Trump mistakenly believed the war would be a limited operation like the January 3 lightning raid in Venezuela and June’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, US officials have said privately.

But this time the repercussions are more far-reaching.

The message to Asian allies such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan may be that Trump, who is looking for warmer ties with China, can be expected to pursue his regional goals with less regard for their geopolitical and economic security.

Analysts believe those governments will adjust for any contingency, such as a Chinese bid to seize Taiwan, out of concern over Trump’s reliability.

European countries, annoyed they are bearing so much of the economic brunt of a war that they never asked for, are likely to be even more nervous about Trump’s commitment to continued aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, analysts say.

Gulf Arab states want the war to end soon, but will be unhappy if Trump cuts a deal without security guarantees for them.

“An end to this conflict should not also create a continuous instability in the region, said Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates.

Most MAGA supporters have stuck with Trump despite some prominent dissenting voices. But there are growing doubts whether he can help his party recover lost ground, especially with independent voters, in time for the midterms.

“He’s aware that a significant portion of the country outside his MAGA base, and even some within the MAGA base, are vehemently opposed to what he’s done,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist.

“And I think the price is going to come due.”