Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S. Democratic Party efforts to return a wrongfully deported Maryland resident in El Salvador, the death of Pope Francis, and U.S.-India trade talks.

Bring Him Back?

Four Democratic U.S. lawmakers traveled to El Salvador on Monday to press for the release of wrongfully detained Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia. Reps. Robert Garcia of California, Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, Yassamin Ansari of Arizona, and Maxine Dexter of Oregon met with U.S. Embassy staff and human rights activists in San Salvador to urge the Trump administration to abide by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that ordered the White House to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

“While Donald Trump continues to defy the Supreme Court, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is being held illegally in El Salvador after being wrongfully deported,” Garcia, the congressman, said. “That is why we’re here—to remind the American people that kidnapping immigrants and deporting them without due process is not how we do things in America.”

Abrego Garcia was transferred to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center on March 15 along with more than 200 individuals accused of being members of Venezuelan gangs, including MS-13 and Tren de Aragua. The White House has since admitted that he was wrongfully deported due to an “administrative error.” However, Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele have refused to take any action to bring him back.

“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said during an Oval Office meeting with Trump last week—the same day that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “It’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him.”

Last Thursday, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen briefly met with Abrego Garcia in San Salvador after accusing local authorities of withholding information about his whereabouts and health. Van Hollen has since said that the backdrop of their meeting was staged to make it look as if Abrego Garcia was being treated well, down to the untouched margarita glasses on the table. On Sunday, the U.S. Justice Department filed an update saying that Abrego Garcia had been moved out of the mega-prison and to Centro Industrial detention facility in Santa Ana.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday temporarily barred the White House from deporting another group of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members after the American Civil Liberties Union said that they were facing imminent transfer without judicial review, which the court previously ordered was required. The Trump administration immediately urged the justices to lift the order.

It is unclear where this deportation flight was headed, but odds are on El Salvador, which has its own plans for how to benefit from Trump’s immigration dealings. Bukele proposed on Sunday that he would repatriate to Caracas the 252 Venezuelans the Trump administration already deported to El Salvador if Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government releases the same number of what Bukele called “political prisoners” that Caracas is holding.

Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab responded late Sunday, calling the offer “cynical” and demanding the immediate release of the Venezuelans held in El Salvador, but he did not say whether Caracas would consider the deal.

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The World This Week

Tuesday, April 22: Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov begins a two-day visit to Uzbekistan.

Kenyan President William Ruto begins a weeklong trip to China.

Wednesday, April 23: Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof concludes a three-day trip to Japan.

French President Emmanuel Macron begins a two-day trip to Madagascar, which will host an Indian Ocean Commission summit on Thursday.

Thursday, April 24: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa hosts Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosts European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Friday, April 25: Macron visits Mauritius.

Saturday, April 26: U.S. and Iranian officials hold a third round of indirect nuclear talks.

Monday, April 28: Brazil begins hosting a two-day BRICS foreign ministers’ meeting.

Canada holds early parliamentary elections.

What We’re Following

The death of the pope. Pope Francis died at the age of 88 on Monday, one day after blessing worshippers attending Easter mass at the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square. Francis had spent the past several months struggling with a slew of health issues that resulted in a lengthy hospital stay for pneumonia. The Vatican has not yet announced a funeral date, but a public viewing could take place as early as Wednesday.

Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became the Catholic Church’s first Latin American pope in March 2013. During his tenure, he championed social change to help the poor, worked to address sexual abuse in the church, and warned against the threat of climate change. Although he held several conservative stances, such as on abortion and transgender rights, Francis was regarded as one of the Catholic Church’s most liberal pontiffs, particularly for allowing priests to bless same-sex couples and for his support for migrants.

The church must now begin the complicated—and highly political—process of selecting a new pope. Some suggest that Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin is the natural successor, as he served as Francis’s No. 2 since 2013. However, other possibilities remain, including U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, who is the de facto leader of the church’s conservative opposition; Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo, another conservative candidate; and Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, once considered a favorite during the 2013 conclave.

“All bets are off when it comes to predicting who will succeed Francis,” Philip Shenon, the author of Jesus Wept: Seven Popes and the Battle for the Soul of the Catholic Church, told Foreign Policy. Irish Cardinal Kevin Joseph Farrell will run the Holy See until a new leader is chosen.

Tariffs on tap. U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance traveled to New Delhi on Monday to discuss a potential trade deal with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In March, Modi said he was open to cutting tariffs on more than half of U.S. goods, which were worth a total of $41.8 billion in 2024. India’s overall trade-weighted average duty comes to around 12 percent, with tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods, meat, and processed food imports reaching a whopping 37.66 percent.

Talks this week will also aim to double bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030 as well as ink a new defense partnership that includes anti-tank guided missiles and infantry combat vehicles. India is a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an Indo-Pacific defense bloc that includes the United States and is seen as a deterrent to growing Chinese influence in the region.

Vance and Modi “reviewed and positively assessed the progress in various areas of bilateral cooperation,” the prime minister’s office said on Monday. However, following Modi’s March proposal, Trump continued to call New Delhi a “tariff abuser” and “tariff king,” suggesting that Modi’s offered terms may not be enough to stymie the White House’s ire.

The four-day, high-level meeting kicked off the same day that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank began their weeklong spring meetings in Washington, during which G-7 and G-20 foreign ministers will convene to discuss the potential repercussions of Trump’s trade war.

Signalgate 2.0. Reports emerged on Sunday that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth used his personal phone to share classified information about then-upcoming military strikes on Yemen in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The message was sent on March 15—the same day that Hegseth accidentally shared military plans with Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg in another Signal group chat that was otherwise comprised of several Trump cabinet members and top advisors.

The fallout of Signalgate 1.0 was minimal. Despite defense experts warning of massive national security implications and top Trump officials testifying before Congress, no cabinet secretaries were fired. On Monday, however, NPR reported that the White House has begun the process of looking for Hegseth’s replacement.

Publicly, though, the White House is all smiles. Trump “stands strongly behind Pete Hegseth,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday. “This is what happens when the entire Pentagon is working against you and working against the monumental change you are trying to implement.”

Hegseth’s brother and personal lawyer both have jobs at the Pentagon, but it is unclear why either would need to know about upcoming military strikes. The defense secretary’s wife is not a Defense Department employee and has been the subject of controversy for accompanying Hegseth to sensitive meetings with foreign leaders.

Odds and Ends

On your marks, get set, power on. Twenty-one humanoid robots raced alongside thousands of Chinese runners during a half-marathon in Beijing on Saturday. A divider separated the machines from the humans, and the robots were allowed special aids to compete, including battery swap pit stops. The Sky Project Ultra robot (also known as Tien Kung Ultra) won the nonhuman side, crossing the finish line in 2 hours, 40 minutes, and 42 seconds. FP’s World Brief writer fears that this may still faster than what her time would be.