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Animosity is building between Europe and America over free speech.

Tuesday, the Trump administration slapped visa restrictions on two Germans, a Frenchman and two Britons over the European Digital Services Act, which it considers a weapon to coerce American social media platforms into censoring or suppressing viewpoints the EU opposes. Under the dsa, the European Commission earlier this month levied a $140 million fine against X.

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European leaders condemned the move and warned of potential retaliation, further straining trans-Atlantic relations over tech policy.

Among those banned is former European Commissioner Thierry Breton, whom Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers called “a mastermind” of the DSA. Breton responded, “As a reminder: 90 percent of the European Parliament—our democratically elected body—and all 27 member states unanimously voted the dsa.”

Friction over social media policy is only a part of the deepening divisions between these nato allies—as Herbert W. Armstrong prophesied. Read about his decades-long forecast in “Atlantic Rift,” in our newly expanded and updated booklet He Was Right.

Pope Leo: Gazans are suffering just like Jesus did: “Jesus took upon Himself our fragility,” allowing Him to identify “with those who have nothing left and have lost everything, like the inhabitants of Gaza,” Pope Leo said today during his first Christmas Day message from the central balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica.

He is not the first to compare Jesus Christ’s suffering with that of the Palestinians. Last year, the late Pope Francis unveiled a nativity scene with “baby Jesus” lying in a manger lined with a Palestinian kaffiyeh. The message resonates with Palestinians. Bethlehem Mayor Maher Nicola Canawati, who met with Leo in September to discuss concerns over Israeli “settlements” and the diminishing numbers of Christians in the Holy Land, said in his own Christmas address:

The child of peace was born in a humble manger—a refuge in turbulent times. At that time, Bethlehem experienced persecution: Mothers trembled with fear for their children; the blood of innocents was shed. Today, the tragedy is repeating itself in Gaza.

Leo characterized the humble circumstances of Jesus’s birth as God pitching “His fragile tent” among the people, then connected it to the Palestinian cause by asking, “How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?”

The Jerusalem Post called the address “an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn spiritual service” for a pope who usually “refrains from making political references.” It added:

But the new pope has also lamented the conditions for Palestinians in Gaza several times recently and told journalists last month that the only solution in the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people must include a Palestinian state.

The pope is using his Christmas address to make barely veiled accusations against the Jewish nation for the suffering in Gaza, while never even mentioning Hamas. The Israeli government refuses to agree to a Palestinian state, fearing that empowering Palestinians further will bring Hamas-like terrorism even closer to home.

The pope’s implied message is deadly. Over the centuries, Catholics have persecuted and killed Jews, blaming them for the suffering and death of Jesus. Now the pope implies that modern Israel causes the suffering of Gazans just as they caused the suffering of Christ. The hateful message that incentivized brutal pogroms and crusades is being revived in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

Are the seeds being sown for yet another crusade? The Bible reveals that they are. Remarkably, Psalm 83 foretells that the Palestinians will play a role in this crusade and side with Catholic Europe, led by Germany. For a detailed explanation, read Chapter 4 of The King of the South.

Who’s to blame for rising U.S. unemployment? The American job market just got some troubling news: Unemployment in November rose to 4.6 percent, the highest since the peak of the covid-19 government lockdowns. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, belatedly released on December 16, the U.S. economy lost 105,000 jobs in October and added only 64,000 in November.

• President Donald Trump has blamed the Federal Reserve, particularly chairman Jerome Powell, for the slowdown, saying that its December 10 quarter-point key interest rate reduction should have been “at least double.” He has also indicated that once Powell’s term ends in May, he wants a new chairman who will push for larger rate cuts than many economic officials currently support.

Cutting the Federal Reserve rate would indirectly create more jobs by making it cheaper for both businesses and individuals to borrow money. Yet it would also exacerbate inflation by further expanding the money supply.

This is one of the main reasons Powell continues to defy President Trump’s wishes.

• The U.S. money supply expanded an incredible 40 percent during the covid-19 crisis as Congress mailed out stimulus checks and the Federal Reserve bought up treasury bonds, causing record inflation.
• To reduce this inflation from 9.1 percent to 2.3 percent, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to 5.3 percent.
• This decision prompted people to pull about $1 trillion out of circulation by stashing it in savings accounts, slowing economic growth.

Now that the Fed is cutting rates, even if only in quarter-point increments, inflation has gone back up to 2.7 percent, and it will go even higher if the Fed does what President Trump is pushing for.

In other words, the U.S. is struggling to simultaneously keep inflation low and job growth high. Why? Because of out-of-control government spending.

President Trump blames Powell for the nation’s economic woes, but the truth is that Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” and other measures are directly causing major economic problems.

“All government spending is taxation,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has said. “The part that isn’t covered by tax revenue becomes inflation.” Because inflation reduces the actual value of a taxpayer’s earnings, he said, “You’re either taxed directly by the government or taxed by inflation.”

• In fiscal year 2025, the government spent $7 trillion while collecting $5.2 trillion in taxes, expanding the money supply with $1.8 trillion in borrowed money.
• High interest rates motivated people to save rather than spend, so the year-over-year inflation rate was only 3.0 percent. But this number will increase if Congress keeps running $1.8 trillion deficits while the Fed slashes interest rates.

The only way for Americans to experience low inflation and significant job growth is to do the one thing they’re unwilling to do: cut government spending. Currently, the federal government spends 5.9 percent of the nation’s gdp on the deficit, while the economy is growing at only 3 percent per year.

This is unsustainable. If America does not halve its federal deficit, its debt-to-gdp ratio will likely hit 150 percent in a generation. No one is sure what debt-to-gdp ratio will finally push America into bankruptcy, but as billionaire Warren Buffett has warned about the deficit, “If something can’t go on forever, it will end.”

In Deuteronomy 28, God specifically warns that debt problems are one of the many curses that result from disobedience to His laws. America’s concerning jobs report is further proof of this fact. Learn more in our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches America’s Economic Collapse.”

IN OTHER NEWS

Zelenskyy presents 20-point peace plan draft: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presented to journalists a new peace proposal on December 23. It revises the initial 28-point plan presented by the U.S. that called for Ukraine to make drastic territorial concessions to Russia, limit its military strength, and agree not to join nato. Many felt the plan, as the Kyiv Independent put it, “effectively pushed Ukraine toward capitulation.” The new proposal includes the following clause: “The United States, nato and European countries will provide Ukraine with security guarantees that mirror Article 5 of nato’s founding treaty, the mutual-defense clause.” The new proposal is more favorable to Ukraine, but it also makes a ceasefire far less likely. These negotiations demonstrate that this conflict cannot be resolved through diplomacy. Meanwhile, the conflict continues and the Russian president grows more and more brutal in his warfare.

Jerusalem vulnerable to October 7-scale terrorism? Israeli State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman released a report on Tuesday stating that Jerusalem is vulnerable to an attack from the West Bank. The report says 39 percent of the border between Jerusalem’s Israeli neighborhoods and Muslim neighborhoods, as well as the West Bank, has no security measures. Englman said this could make Jerusalem as vulnerable as the southern area through which Hamas rampaged, terrorized, raped, tortured and murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 men, women and children, and injuring more than 3,000. Englman said the security deficiencies “are so problematic that they should be causing the political-security leadership to lose sleep.” Zechariah 14:1-2 prophesy that Palestinians in the West Bank will conquer half of Jerusalem. Continue to watch Jerusalem closely.

Trump-endorsed Asfura wins Honduran election: After major technical problems, allegations of fraud and weeks of delays, Nasry Asfura was declared the winner of the razor-thin presidential election in Honduras today. Backed by President Donald Trump, Asfura’s conservative National Party candidate won 40.3 percent of the vote, narrowly edging out Salvador Nasralla of the center-right Liberal Party, which won 39.5 percent. Considering that the conservative José Antonio Kast was recently elected president of Chile, and that Nicolás Maduro may soon be ousted from power in Venezuela, Asfura’s election could be part of a conservative revival in Latin America. This isn’t necessarily good news: Conservative Latin Americans are more likely to ally with both the Roman Catholic Church and the European Union, two powers that are prophesied to oppose the United States.