Donald Trump departed today for Rome, where he will attend his wife Melania tomorrow at the funeral of Pope Francis, along with leaders from all over the world, against whom he has not stopped in January from launching commercial and diplomatic arrows.

The US president is expected to reach the Italian capital around 22.50 local time.

“We will meet many leaders of foreign countries” on the sidelines of the funeral, he assured journalists himself shortly before leaving the White House, but without clarifying exactly who.

Ukraine President Volodimir Zelenski said on Tuesday that he would “want” to meet with his US counterpart in the Vatican.

Donald Trump accused him last week of sabotaging a future peace deal with Russia.

Initially, he was foreseen, as he did during his first term (2017-2021), to go to Saudi Arabia for his first trip abroad, but Pope Francis’ death changed his plans.

The Republican billionaire, who identifies himself as a Christian “without a religious identity”, ordered the flags to wave in the US public buildings in memory of Argentine Pontiff, who had criticized his anti -immigration policy.

Today, he told Francis that he was a “wonderful” man who “loved the world”.

With the sincerity that characterized him, Pontiff had condemned Donald Trump since February 2016, when the Republican was still a candidate for the White House, saying: “A man who wants to build walls and not bridges is not a Christian.”

The former US president, Democratic Joe Biden, who had close relations with Francis, will attend the funeral with his wife Jill, but will travel independently and not as a guest of his successor, according to his office.

For the funeral of Pope Ioannis Pavlos II in 2005, President George W. Bush had taken with him two of his predecessors: Bill Clinton and his father George Bush the Elder.