European leaders have dealt with President Trump’s return to office by trying to keep him cooperating on Ukraine while pushing to ramp up their own defense spending so they are less reliant on an increasingly fickle America.

But Friday’s meeting in the Oval Office, in which Mr. Trump berated President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, underscored for European leaders that while they still need to try to keep the United States at the table, they also might need to come up with more concrete plans of their own — and fast.

Following the heated exchange, a visibly annoyed Mr. Trump canceled a news conference with the Ukrainian leader and posted on social media that Mr. Zelensky was “not ready for peace” so long as he has American backing.

His anger — and his threat that the United States could stop supporting Ukraine if it did not accept any U.S.-brokered peace deal — was just the latest sign that Mr. Trump was pivoting American foreign policy away from traditional allies in Europe and toward Russia.

The stark shift in American strategy has left the continent’s leaders reeling. Many worry that if the war ends with a weak deal for Ukraine, it would embolden Russia, making it a greater threat to the rest of Europe. And the change in tone makes achieving greater self-reliance more urgent than ever, even if the European leaders face the same daunting challenges as before.

It would take years to build the weapons systems and capabilities that Europe would need to be truly independent militarily. And supporting Ukraine while building homegrown defenses could take the type of rapid action and united political will that the European Union often struggles to achieve.

“Everything relies on Europe today: The question is, how do they step up?” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, acting president of the German Marshall Fund. “They have no alternative.”

European leaders had already been debating how they could help guarantee security in Ukraine if a peace deal were struck, what terms they would find acceptable, and what they might give Ukraine in their next aid package.

In fact, top officials are poised to meet this week to discuss defense, first in London on Sunday at a gathering organized by Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, then in Brussels on Thursday at a special summit of the European Council, which brings together E.U. leaders.

Representatives from the bloc’s 27 member countries met on Friday afternoon to come up with a draft of ideas for the meeting in Brussels. The plan included calls to beef up E.U. defenses faster than previously expected, and to more clearly define possible security guarantees for Ukraine, according to an E.U. official briefed on the matter.

And that was before Friday’s exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky.

The flare-up spurred an immediate outpouring of outrage and public support for Ukraine from many European officials.

“The scene at the White House yesterday took my breath away,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told D.P.A., a German news agency, on Saturday. “I would never have believed that we would ever have to defend Ukraine from the United States.”

It also prompted calls for fast action, with some European diplomats and leaders hoping that even countries that have been reluctant to increase spending on defense and support for Ukraine will now get on board with a more ambitious approach.

“A powerful Europe, we need it more than ever,” President Emmanuel Macron of France posted on social media. “The surge is now.”

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s top diplomat, was even more emphatic.

“We will step up our support to Ukraine,” she wrote on social media on Friday night. “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”

Yet for all of the bracing pronouncements, speeding up Europe’s transition to greater autonomy on defense will be no easy task.

For starters, shouldering a greater part of the financial burden for aiding Ukraine is likely to be expensive. The United States alone has spent about $114 billion on military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine over the past three years, according to one frequently used tracker, compared to Europe’s $132 billion.

Plus, when it comes to European defense more broadly, America provides critical weapons systems and other military equipment that would be near impossible to replace quickly.

“We still do need the U.S.,” said Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of the Brussels-based research group Bruegel.

E.U. nations have been increasing their military spending in recent years — spending 30 percent more last year than in 2021. But some NATO countries are still short of the goal of members’ spending 2 percent or more of their gross domestic product on defense.

Part of the problem is that spending more on defense typically means spending less on other priorities, like health care and social services. And given economic challenges and budgetary limitations in Germany, France and smaller economies like Belgium, finding the political will to rapidly ramp up outlays has sometimes been a challenge.

Still, European leaders are trying to find ways to make bloc-wide deficit rules more flexible to enable more military investments.

“Decisions on massive investments are needed with regard to our common European defense capabilities,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said on Saturday, calling for such action this week.

When it comes to finding more money to support Ukraine, Europeans are not speaking with one voice.

European officials had already been discussing a future aid package for Ukraine, one that could total tens of billions of euros. By Friday night, countries that have been pushing for more ambitious sums were hoping that Mr. Trump’s tone during the Zelensky meeting would help to prod European laggards to open their pocketbooks, according to one diplomat familiar with discussions.

But Hungary is expected to oppose the new aid package for Ukraine, which could force the E.U. to cobble together contributions from member states, rather than passing a package at the level of the bloc, since the latter would require unanimity.

In a clear sign of the disunity, Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, stood apart from many other European leaders, thanking Mr. Trump for his exchange with Mr. Zelensky. He wrote on social media that the American leader “stood bravely for peace” even if “it was difficult for many to digest.”

European officials have also been considering whether, when and how to put European peacekeeping forces on the ground in Ukraine if a deal is reached to stop the war. Britain has expressed a willingness to send troops to Ukraine, as has France. Discussions on that are expected to continue this week.

But in light of Friday’s exchange, some say the time for slow-moving deliberation may be over. While officials had just begun to talk about what security guarantees for Ukraine might look like, they may need to begin to quickly think about how to implement them, said Ms. de Hoop Scheffer at the German Marshall Fund.

“This is a time for Europe to very, very seriously step up,” she said.

She added that the Oval Office blowup had underscored that European officials will need to put forward their best mediators to try to keep the United States on board, to the extent possible.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is seen as one of the closest leaders to Mr. Trump in Europe. She said in a statement on Friday night that she would try to push for a meeting among all of the allies.

“It is necessary to have an immediate summit between the United States, European states and allies to talk frankly about how we intend to face today’s great challenges,” she said. “Starting with Ukraine.”

And earlier last week, both Mr. Starmer and Mr. Macron traveled to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump, gatherings that seemed to go considerably better than the meeting with Mr. Zelensky — even if they failed to achieve major goals like getting a U.S. security “backstop” for peacekeeping troops.

In fact, Mr. Starmer’s plans to debrief European leaders on his trip during the Sunday summit highlighted one side effect of the shift in America’s tone: European Union countries and Britain are coming closer together as they draw up defense plans.

That puts Mr. Starmer in a position to play more of a leadership role in dealings with the United States, as Germany works to put together a new government and the French struggle with domestic political challenges.

Given how necessary U.S. support remains, European leaders are likely to strategize about how to keep Mr. Trump engaged as they talk this week. Already, Mr. Zelensky posted messages thankful for American support on social media.

On Sunday, before his trip to London, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said officials were talking about the need to have the “closest possible alliance with the United States.”

But as Europe increasingly recognizes that the United States is “super unreliable,” as Mr. Zettelmeyer at Bruegel put it, the time for simply hoping for continuity in relations may be past.

“We’ve had several of these shocking moments — every time there’s a shocking moment, there’s a lot of hand wringing,” he said. “The really interesting question is: Is this time going to be different?”

Emma Bubola contributed reporting.

Israel announced on Sunday that it was immediately halting the entry of all goods and humanitarian assistance into Gaza, trying to force Hamas into accepting a temporary extension of the cease-fire in the war.

The move disrupts the existing, agreed-upon framework for negotiating a permanent end to the war and puts the fate of the hostages into uncharted territory. The draconian halt on goods and aid, including fuel, is also likely to worsen conditions for the roughly two million inhabitants of Gaza, after the 15-month war left much of the coastal enclave in ruins.

The initial, six-week phase of the original deal between Israel and Hamas expired on Saturday. Though it was punctured by setbacks and mutual accusations of violations, it ultimately saw at least a temporary cessation in the fighting and the exchange of 25 living Israeli hostages and the remains of eight dead ones for about 1,500 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. That deal also allowed for a significant increase of aid into Gaza.

The next phase of the agreement called for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and a commitment to a permanent cease-fire in return for the release of all the remaining living hostages in Gaza, who are being held in inhumane conditions, according to reports from hostages who have been freed.

Instead, hours before its announcement about the halt of aid, Israel proposed a seven-week extension of the temporary cease-fire, during which Hamas must release half the remaining living hostages as well as the remains of half the deceased ones. Upon conclusion of that extension, if agreement were reached on a permanent cease-fire, then all the remaining hostages would have to be released, the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

“Israel will not allow a cease-fire without the release of our hostages,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

“If Hamas continues its refusal, there will be further consequences,” it added.

Hamas immediately rejected the Israeli gambit, issuing a statement on Sunday describing the halt in aid as “cheap blackmail” and “a blatant upending of the agreement.”

Israel attributed the new proposal to the work of the U.S. envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff. The existing deal was negotiated between Israel and Hamas through third-country mediators including the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

Last year, the United Nations and aid organizations repeatedly warned about a looming famine in Gaza amid widespread hunger during the war, which was sparked by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel. While goods are more available now, many Gazans say they cannot afford to buy them, and many depend on humanitarian assistance.

Palestinians in Gaza were already struggling to celebrate the holy month of Ramadan, which began this weekend, and is normally a joyous time in the Muslim calendar.

Abdulrahman Mohammed, 35, a father of four from Gaza City, said the halting of aid was already affecting the availability of essential goods like milk, fruit and vegetables. Prices had skyrocketed, he said, adding that some traders were hoarding supplies to sell them later at even more inflated prices.

Two Israeli officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said the government believed that with the aid and goods that entered the enclave in recent months and during the temporary cease-fire, there were enough supplies in Gaza to suffice for several more months. They did not offer further details.

The officials added that the new restrictions would not apply to the entry of water.

Under the existing cease-fire deal, Israel was by now supposed to have begun removing its troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strategic strip of land along Gaza’s border with Egypt. By Sunday, there had been no such movement.

Mr. Netanyahu said the proposed temporary cease-fire should extend over the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and through the Jewish holiday of Passover, which ends on April 20.

In broadcast remarks at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “Steve Witkoff proposed the framework for extending the cease-fire after gaining the impression that there is no possibility, at present, of bridging between the two positions, Israel’s and Hamas’s, regarding the second stage” of the existing deal.

Mr. Netanyahu added that according to Mr. Witkoff, additional time for talks was needed to achieve a possible agreement. “He even defined his proposal as a corridor for negotiations on the second stage,” Mr. Netanyahu added. “Israel is ready for this.”

But the Israeli government has been categorical that the war in Gaza cannot end unless Hamas is disarmed and removed from power there, terms that Hamas has largely rejected.

Israelis have been shocked by the testimonies of recently released hostages who said they were kept for months in dark tunnels, in constant fear for their lives, with very little food and, in some cases, in shackles. The families of hostages remaining in Gaza have been pleading for the government to end the war and bring them home all at once.

In all, up to 24 hostages are believed to still be alive in Gaza, Mr. Netanyahu said on Sunday. Hamas also holds the remains of at least 35 who are believed to be dead, he added in recorded remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “We are not giving up on anyone,” he said.

“There will be no free lunches,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “If Hamas thinks that it will be possible to continue the cease-fire or benefit from the terms of the first stage, without us receiving hostages, it is sorely mistaken.”

On Sunday, Hamas reiterated its willingness to begin negotiations for the second stage of the deal and accused Israel of “a blatant attempt to renege on the agreement.”

Hamas is unlikely to accept Israel’s new offer without further negotiations, said Aaron David Miller, a former State Department Middle East analyst and negotiator who is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The proposal, he said, “allows Israelis to get hostages back without making reciprocal commitments.”

On Sunday, Israel also raised the specter of resuming fighting in Gaza, noting in the statement that according to the original agreement, Israel could return to fighting at this point “if it gains the impression that the negotiations have been ineffective.”

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on Saturday that he had signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.

Eve Sampson contributed reporting from New York, Ameera Harouda from Doha, Qatar, and Myra Noveck from Jerusalem.

A respiratory crisis suffered by Pope Francis on Friday during his two-week hospitalization for pneumonia has added urgency to a delicate, and uncomfortable, question worrying many in the church: What would happen if the pope remains in critical condition for an extended period, with his health worsening, his faculties fading, his quality of life deteriorating?

And what would his approach be to extended medical interventions, as well as, ultimately, his end-of-life plans?

Francis, 88, has talked about a resignation letter he put on file with the Vatican soon after his election in the event that he became incapacitated, but its contents are unknown. It is also unknown if he has a living will, or whom, if anyone, he has entrusted to make decisions about his health if he no longer can do so himself.

Asked about the pope’s desires, the Vatican responded that “it’s too early” to talk about end-of-life details. And while his prognosis remains guarded, Saturday evening’s health bulletin had encouraging news about the pope’s health.

“The clinical condition of the Holy Father remains stable,” said the Vatican statement, which added that the pope had no fever or signs of new infection. It said that he spent extended time off the noninvasive mechanical ventilation he initially needed during Friday’s respiratory crisis, was vigilant and prayed for about 20 minutes in a private chapel connected to his hospital room. On Sunday morning, they added that he had slept peacefully through the night and continued to rest.

Some supporters of the pope say questions about his end-of-life preferences are premature, even intrusive. But church experts say the lack of a public protocol on how to make end-of-life decisions for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church is troubling. And with setbacks like Friday’s respiratory crisis, the question is no longer theoretical.

“It’s a problem we have to face when we come to it,” said Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s foreign minister, who stressed that he had no knowledge about the pope’s health, other than the public statements by the Vatican.

Catholic doctrine teaches that life begins at conception and ends at natural death, and should be defended from start to finish. But there is ambiguity and debate within the church on the bioethics of when the surrendering of life is legitimate.

Church teaching allows for the cessation of “extraordinary means” to keep a person alive, but there is vast interpretation and debate about the definition of extraordinary means.

Critics of the ambiguity say the church is woefully behind the times given the breakthroughs in modern medicine and its ability to keep people alive through life-sustaining treatments such as artificial nutrition and hydration, resuscitation, antibiotics, respirators and dialysis.

“I’m being told that there was some document prepared by Benedict on this issue,” Archbishop Gallagher said, referring to Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. He added that he had no personal information about its contents or whether Francis had “indicated that he’s in agreement with the document.”

Asked about the existence of such a letter, the Vatican press office said it had no awareness of it.

But the notion that there are secret letters spelling out the end-of-life wishes of popes did not comfort those who advocate transparency.

“Secret documents are really dumb,” said the Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a longtime Vatican analyst, who has urged the Vatican to provide clear protocols for the pope.

He said the concealment of the documents made them vulnerable to conspiracy theorists in a gossipy city-state where people still have their doubts about the death of John Paul I, who served as pope in 1978 for only 33 days.

“In a family, if there’s no document,” Father Reese said, relatives often wrestle with excruciating decisions about when to let go. “Imagine if this is the Vatican and the church is debating on whether or not we unplug the pope. It will be chaos.”

He envisioned fights over critical health decisions between cardinals who want the pope to remain alive and those who want someone else, perhaps themselves, in his place. “These are the kinds of things that cause schisms,” he said, referring to the formal, and epochal, splits in the church.

Francis has weighed in publicly on the ethics of end-of-life issues before, just not for himself. His remarks, people who know him say, reflect his acceptance of humanity-defining limits as key to his theology and worldview.

“Surgery and other medical interventions have become ever more effective, but they are not always beneficial,” Francis wrote to a European meeting of medical professionals to discuss end-of-life issues in 2017. He added that it was morally legitimate to forgo or discontinue some interventions if they only delayed an inevitable end. “Such a decision,” he said, “responsibly acknowledges the limitations of our mortality once it becomes clear that opposition to it is futile.”

Popes going back to at least the 1950s have weighed in on the ethical considerations surrounding the end of life. Pius XII told a meeting of anesthesiologists that in some cases it was appropriate to refrain from therapies.

In 2020, the Vatican’s office on church doctrine issued a document that promoted the use of hospice centers and palliative care, and argued that “extraordinary” care at the end of life can be suspended to avoid prolonged suffering at the end of life because it “expresses acceptance of the human condition in the face of death.”

It was important, the document said, that such cessation not be conflated with euthanasia or assisted suicide, which it considered “intrinsically evil,” because the goal was death.

Sedating a patient to the point where they lose consciousness was morally legitimate, the Vatican wrote, “to ensure that the end of life arrives with the greatest possible peace.” The Vatican declared that it was also acceptable to cease ineffective care to people in a vegetative state if it saddled the patient with “an excessive burden with negative results that exceed any benefits.”

In 2024, the Church’s Pontifical Academy for Life issued a booklet on end-of-life terminology. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and a close aide of the pope, wrote in the introduction that the booklet was intended to foster “heartfelt and in-depth dialogue” about painful decisions, and not “prepackaged and partisan ideologies.”

The booklet included a template of a living will to be prepared with the help of a priest, and explained that at the end of life, mitigating pain could allow patients the space to concentrate on their human relationships.

“The communication between a doctor and patient — and with family members,” the booklet said, “is an element of decisive importance in the development of ethical choices concerning the changes in treatment.”

Archbishop Gallagher said that while he hoped Francis would be back at work soon, it was entirely possible the pope was having those conversations now.

“Francis,” he said, “may be saying things to his doctors in these days, you know, about how he feels about these things and what he wants.”

Mexico braced for the worst when President Trump threatened steep tariffs on its exports. But as a deadline looms, Mexico’s leaders hope they have found a formula for staving off tariffs by moving decisively on several fronts to appease Mr. Trump.

Focusing on Mr. Trump’s complaints over migration and illicit drugs, President Claudia Sheinbaum is deploying 10,000 troops to deter migrants from reaching the United States, building on efforts to break up migrant caravans and busing migrants to places far from the border.

Ms. Sheinbaum is also handing over to the United States dozens of top cartel operatives and accepting intelligence from C.I.A. drone flights to capture others. Breaking with her predecessor, who falsely claimed that Mexico did not manufacture fentanyl, she is unleashing a crackdown resulting in record seizures of the drug.

At the same time, Mexico’s leaders are imposing their own tariffs and restrictions on a wide range of Chinese imports, seeking to persuade Mr. Trump that Mexico, and its low-cost industrial base, can be a strategic partner to blunt China’s economic sway.

Mr. Trump is still vowing to impose 25 percent tariffs on Tuesday. But Mexico’s financial markets remain calm, reflecting expectations in the country’s business establishment that Ms. Sheinbaum can find a way to strike a deal.

“The way she’s been able to manage this crisis has been far superior than any other leader,” said Diego Marroquín Bitar, a scholar who specializes in North American trade at the Wilson Center, a Washington research group.

Mr. Trump praised Ms. Sheinbaum as a “marvelous woman” after speaking with her in February.

Ms. Sheinbaum has mixed her conciliatory public moves to appease Mr. Trump, such as deploying troops, with greater security cooperation behind the scenes and a modest dose of pushback against Mr. Trump on subjects like renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s not an easy balancing act for Ms. Sheinbaum, even as her approval rating has soared to 80 percent. Skepticism of Mr. Trump’s xenophobic politics runs deep both in Mexican society and within Morena, Ms. Sheinbaum’s political party, which blends nationalist and leftist ideals.

After decades of integration, Mexico relies on trade with the United States more than any other major economy. Tariffs, even if imposed briefly, could deal a blow, economists warn.

Mr. Trump is also threatening separate 25 percent tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports, which would also affect Mexico. And the Trump administration is formulating additional “reciprocal” tariffs aimed at offsetting trade restrictions and matching the import duties charged by other countries.

The uncertainty over tariffs is already weighing on Mexico’s economy as companies put plans on hold. The central bank slashed its growth projection to 0.6 percent for this year from 1.2 percent.

Still, Mr. Trump’s repeated threats and subsequent pullback on those threats have nurtured hopes that tensions could ease. He initially vowed to impose the tariffs on his first day in office, but then backtracked twice.

Mexican negotiators are in Washington to meet with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, in a bid to reach a last-minute deal.

Here are three areas where Mexico is mobilizing to align with the Trump administration’s priorities.

Curbing Migration

Mexico’s pledge to send 10,000 additional National Guard members to the U.S. border was cited as a win by Mr. Trump in early February, when he paused imposing tariffs for 30 days.

For months, Mexico had already been dismantling migrant caravans well before they reached border cities and expanding a shadowy program that transported thousands of migrants to places deep in Mexico’s interior.

Mexico detained about 475,000 migrants in the last quarter of 2024, according to government figures, more than double the amount detained in the first nine months of the year.

The border was already exceptionally quiet before Mr. Trump took office in January, reflecting Mexico’s enforcement measures and the Biden administration’s asylum restrictions.

The Trump administration’s new efforts to choke off migration flows, along with Mexico’s troop deployment, are making it even harder for migrants to enter the United States.

Migrant crossings have dropped to once unthinkable levels. At one point in February, U.S. personnel on the Mexican border encountered only 200 migrants in a single day, the lowest such figure in recent history.

If the trend holds on an annualized basis, Border Patrol apprehensions could decline to levels last seen nearly 60 years ago around the end of the Johnson administration, according to Adam Isacson, a migration expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Targeting Cartels

Mexico has sought to crack down on cartels producing illicit narcotics, especially fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that Mr. Trump has cited as the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.

Marking a break from past policies, when cartels managed to produce fentanyl with negligible interference from the authorities, Mexican officials have been announcing new seizures of fentanyl pills on a regular basis in recent weeks.

These moves include the capture last week of six kilos of fentanyl at Mexico City’s new international airport, in a package being sent to New Jersey. That followed the discovery of 18 kilograms of fentanyl hidden in a passenger bus in the northwestern border state of Sonora.

In December, shortly after Mr. Trump began threatening Mexico with tariffs, the authorities made a colossal seizure of 800 kilograms of fentanyl in Sinaloa state, Mexico’s largest capture of synthetic opioids.

In February, Mexican authorities in Puerto Vallarta also arrested two American citizens who faced arrest warrants in the United States for trafficking fentanyl. Both were extradited to Oklahoma.

Mexico followed up on Thursday by sending to the United States nearly 30 top cartel operatives wanted by American authorities, one of the largest such handovers in the history of the drug war.

The moves are aimed both at avoiding tariffs and military intervention by the United States, which Mr. Trump has threatened to take against drug cartels operating in Mexico.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Ms. Sheinbaum’s mentor and predecessor as president, had limited anti-narcotics cooperation with United States. Ms. Sheinbaum appears to be taking a different approach.

Mexican officials, for instance, have been welcoming intelligence from the C.I.A., which has stepped up secret drone flights over Mexico to hunt for fentanyl labs. Mexico’s defense minister said in late February that U.S. drones had been used to track down top Sinaloa Cartel figures.

Greater enforcement could potentially contribute to reducing overdose deaths in the United States, which have already been on the decline.

In what could be a promising sign for Mexican negotiators seeking a deal on tariffs, overdose deaths fell about 24 percent in the 12-month period ending September 2024, compared with the same period the previous year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Countering China

Trade between China and Mexico had been surging, fueling concerns that China could use its foothold in Mexico to gain greater access to U.S. markets. A year ago, shipping from China to Mexico was one of the world’s fastest growing trade routes.

But now Mexico is overhauling its ties with China, its second-largest trading partner. Just days after Mr. Trump first vowed to impose tariffs, the authorities raided a vast complex of stores in downtown Mexico City selling counterfeit Chinese goods.

Then Mexico imposed a 35 percent tariff on Chinese apparel imports, while also targeting Chinese online retailers like Shein and Temu by implementing a 19 percent tariff on goods imported through courier companies originating from China.

Still, with various tariff threats on the horizon, Mexico could do more to placate the Trump administration by moving to curb the import of products like semiconductors or automobiles, which are quickly making inroads in an important market for U.S. car manufacturers.

The Finnish authorities said on Sunday that they had released an oil tanker seized in December over suspicions that it had deliberately cut vital undersea cables but that a criminal investigation into the episode would continue.

The authorities said last year that the ship, the Eagle S, appeared to belong to Russia’s shadow fleet — older tankers that covertly transport Russian crude oil around the world — escalating concerns about a covert campaign to sabotage European infrastructure.

On Sunday, the Finnish police said that since the criminal inquiry “has progressed,” the aging tanker was free to leave and that border officials had escorted the ship out of the country’s territorial waters.

Petteri Orpo, Finland’s prime minister, said in an interview with Yle, the country’s public broadcaster, that “the criminal process and investigation will continue.”

Investigators were still examining materials gathered after an onboard “forensic investigation” and would continue to interview the crew, according to the police.

Eight crew members are suspected of criminal offenses, including aggravated criminal mischief and aggravated interference with communications, the police said in a statement. Five were allowed to leave Finland last week, while the other three were still barred from leaving, according to the statement.

The police said the authorities hoped to conclude the investigation by the end of April.

The cutting of the cables under the Baltic Sea in late December came on the heels of a series of similar incidents and prompted NATO to bolster security in the region. In January, the Swedish authorities also seized a ship and said they suspected “gross sabotage” after a different undersea cable was damaged. Last month, the European Union vowed to increase security after another cable break.

The Eagle S, registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was seized.

Western officials have long feared that Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet could be used to circumvent sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The episodes of severed cables raised worries that the shadow fleet might also be used for sabotage.

The Kremlin has denied involvement in sabotage, and Russian officials have condemned the seizure of the Eagle S.

After back-to-back wins for best picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, the papal thriller “Conclave” has a chance at a hat-trick on Sunday at the Academy Awards.

The shot at cinematic glory comes at an awkward time: Cardinals and the faithful in Rome have been fervently praying in St. Peter’s Square each evening that life will not imitate art. Millions more are doing so around the world.

Pope Francis, 88, is more than two weeks into a stay at Policlinico Agostino Gemelli, a Rome hospital, for pneumonia in both lungs, along with other infections.

The Vatican said on Sunday morning — two days after a bronchial spasm that required him to undergo noninvasive mechanical ventilation — that the pope was resting after a peaceful night.

On Saturday, the Holy See had reported that Francis was stable and that he was alternating that mechanical ventilation with long periods of high-flow oxygen therapy.

But the crisis on Friday again renewed concerns about the prognosis for the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, and its own future.

The film “Conclave” has become a primer of sorts, giving millions a glimpse into the traditional — and secretive — rituals that regulate the election of a new pope.

The word conclave — from the Latin “with key” — refers to the isolation imposed on the cardinals who are locked inside the Sistine Chapel until a new pope is chosen, which is meant to keep the electoral process from dragging on. The cardinals take a vow of silence that can be broken only with papal permission (though leaks are plentiful).

The film stars Ralph Fiennes as Lawrence, the dean of the College of Cardinals, who in the movie is responsible for leading the papal election, and Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati and Sergio Castellitto as papal contenders.

Their characters are not based on real people, but are instead amalgams of contrasting blocs, traditionalist and progressive, that loosely correlate with existing currents in the church.

Francis has tried to position the church to be more inclusive, giving rise to concern from critics who worry that he is sacrificing its traditions in the process.

He has allowed debates on previously taboo topics — like priestly celibacy, married priests and the extension of sacraments to the divorced. In doing so, he has set in motion subtle shifts toward liberalizing changes that have enraged conservatives for going too far and frustrated progressives for not going far enough.

A conclave will ultimately decide whether the church will pursue Francis’ vision, or shift in another direction.

Alberto Melloni, a church historian who is writing a book about the history of conclaves, said the film drew very precise fault lines, but in real life, cardinals would “not be so open about their antagonisms.”

“But to make a film,” he added, “you have to make explicit what in the real world is implicit.”

“Conclave” is hardly the first film to chronicle a papal election, but it may be the first where so much care has been taken to get the liturgical details right.

Robert Harris, who wrote the novel the film was based on, and the scriptwriter Peter Straughan were able to reflect the precise rules that Pope John Paul II established in 1996 for electing a pope.

Scenes show the Sistine Chapel being swept for electronic listening devices; the Latin oaths the cardinals swear before and during voting; and the tradition of threading the paper ballots after they have been counted so they can be preserved.

For his novel, Mr. Harris said in an interview last year, he turned to the former archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, as a consultant.

When the book was published, Mr. Harris recalled, the cleric wrote him “a very nice letter saying it was just like a conclave and that the research was very good.” (The cardinal died in 2017.)

As for the plot and its surprise ending, the cardinal noted, “it was only a novel,” Mr. Harris said.

The film’s production team also took painstaking care when it came to recreating the Sistine Chapel and the more mundane Domus Sanctae Marthae, the Vatican guesthouse built to house cardinals during conclaves that is currently also Pope Francis’ home.

The production designer, Suzie Davies, who is up for an Oscar along with the set decorator, Cynthia Sleiter, said she had approached the film “more like a ’70s thriller than a religious film,” blending tradition, history and real-life mundanity like “cardinals on cellphones or vaping or going through security machines,” often set against the architecture of 20th-century Rome.

And the cast and crew had some insider training. The Rev. Elio Lops, the parish priest of San Vitale al Quirinale, one of Rome’s oldest churches, first gave the actors a grounding in Catholicism.

“They got a two-month crash course,” he said, including how to make the sign of the cross and to pronounce Latin prayers correctly.

Mr. Fiennes, who is up for best actor, was taught how a cardinal might behave in a particular situation. “It made them all very realistic,” said Father Lops, who also advised on Paolo Sorrentino’s television series “The Young Pope,” and on Fernando Meirelles’ 2019 film, “The Two Popes.”

The Vatican has only made passing mention of the film up to now. A short review in the Vatican newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano” gushed over Isabella Rossellini’s turn as Sister Agnes, and acknowledged the “spectacular” nature of a conclave with its “rituals and myths.”

Cardinal Anders Arborelius, the bishop of Stockholm, said in an interview that he had watched “Conclave” on a plane to Singapore. “It was a bit exaggerated in some sense, but they were good actors,” he said. “It was interesting to see.”

Emma Bubola contributed reporting.

In the past six months, Maye Musk, the mother of Elon Musk, has been to China, Kazakhstan and the United Arab Emirates, visits that come as foreign leaders are jockeying for influence over the Trump administration.

Ms. Musk, 76, has for years traveled the world to model, speak and promote her memoir. But lately she seems to be even more in demand, especially outside the United States. And her celebrity has taken on greater significance now that Mr. Musk has considerable influence over how billions of dollars in military spending and foreign aid will get paid out.

In late 2024, she visited China at least four times to endorse or model for seven brands there, including makeup products, down jackets and massage devices. Her visits were promoted by state media outlets, which in the past have quoted her calling for improved ties between the United States and China.

In October, three weeks before the U.S. presidential election, she headlined a forum on women in Kazakhstan, where she spoke about her son’s success, according to Kazinform, a state news agency there.

And in January, the week before Donald J. Trump’s second inauguration, she was in Dubai, speaking at a government conference on influencers with the former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. Her talk was titled, “How I Raised Three Amazing Children, Including the Richest Man in the World,” according to the state-run Emirates News Agency.

All of these trips were taken after Mr. Musk became a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump’s campaign, and on several of them, she waded into U.S. politics.

Several of the countries where she recently appeared have concerns to press in Washington.

Beijing opposes newly announced U.S. tariffs on its goods, and leaders there appear to see Mr. Musk, who himself has extensive business interests in China, as a potential ally. Kazakhstan is hoping that the Trump administration will end restrictions on trade. And the United Arab Emirates buys weapons from Washington and has spent hundreds of millions on lobbyists and donations to think tanks.

Ms. Musk has long traveled extensively for work, both within the United States and overseas. But her activities in China have intensified in recent months, a review of her social media posts over the past four years by The New York Times found. She endorsed five Chinese brands last year, while the year before, she traveled to China mostly to promote her book and for modeling work, appearing in one ad.

The Times could not confirm how much Ms. Musk has earned overseas in recent months. Although in her endorsements and speeches she often emphasizes her connection to Mr. Musk, there is no evidence that she has sought to influence U.S. government policy. Nor is there evidence that she has taken work linked to China’s government.

Ms. Musk’s agency, the Los Angeles-based Creative Artists Agency; her manager, Anna Sherman; and a lawyer who has recently worked for Ms. Musk, Doreen Small, did not respond to questions about her international engagements, including how much she has earned for speaking and endorsing products. The five Chinese brands she endorsed last year did not reply to questions about how much she was paid.

Her activities raise the possibility that foreign governments could see her as a conduit to Mr. Musk, said Scott Amey, the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group. “The fear is,” he said, “would people be using her to get one degree of separation from her son and two degrees of separation from the Oval Office?”

Mr. Musk is already dogged by ethical concerns stemming from his businesses such as SpaceX, which has billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. “We don’t need other potential conflicts of interest that involve his family to be added to his long list that already exists,” Mr. Amey said.

The F.B.I. normally scrutinizes the foreign contacts of presidential advisers and their family members before granting security clearances. Contacts from countries seen as potential U.S. adversaries, like China, typically receive more scrutiny.

It is unclear if Ms. Musk or her contacts have been vetted. The White House has said that her son is a “special government employee,” a short-term adviser who is subject to federal ethics law, but has not disclosed his security clearance status. Before joining the U.S. government, he had skirted reporting requirements as a federal contractor.

Mr. Musk and his lawyer, Alex Spiro, did not respond to questions about his clearance status or his mother’s work overseas. He said on X on Feb. 14 that he has had a “top secret clearance for many years.”

It is notable that both Mr. Musk and his mother have interests in China, said Norman Eisen, a former White House ethics counsel in the Obama administration and a founder of the State Democracy Defenders Fund, which is suing Mr. Musk and his team on behalf of current and recently laid-off federal workers. (Mr. Musk’s company, Tesla, makes half its cars in China, for instance.)

But Ms. Musk’s business trips to China and other countries independently deserve attention, Mr. Eisen said. “Given the exceptionally powerful role of Mr. Musk, who may be the single most influential person in the executive branch, even beyond Trump himself, these foreign entanglements are a cause for concern,” he said.

Mr. Musk often appears in public with his mother and, before becoming a government adviser, brought her to business meetings at X, the social media company he owns, according to the book “Character Limit,” by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac, both reporters for The Times. Since the election, she has accompanied him to social events at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and defended her son on Fox News.

Ms. Musk, who was born in Canada but raised Mr. Musk and his two younger siblings in South Africa, has modeled for decades. In recent years, however, her career took off in parallel with that of Mr. Musk. Her rise also reflected an effort in fashion to work with models of varying ages and body types.

Ms. Musk, who has an apartment in New York, has modeled for American and European brands, appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition in 2022.

Recently she has developed a large following in China, where some of her success is tied to being the mother of Mr. Musk, who has star status there. Fans and businesspeople closely track developments in his tech empire and pore over biographies of him, hoping to gain insights.

His mother’s popularity in China comes amid strained relations with the United States, as the threat of still more tariffs and other tensions hang over the relationship.

She has signed copies of her memoir, in which she writes about raising her three children as a single mother, and of surviving domestic abuse (which her former husband has denied). She opened accounts on Chinese social media and has amassed 1.2 million followers across multiple platforms, where fans thank her for being a role model and ask questions about Mr. Musk.

Ms. Musk has visited more than a dozen Chinese cities, graced billboards and magazine covers, and is often invited to speak (in English) at events geared toward women there. Her image “carries an element of successful parenting, attracting a significant number of mothers among her followers,” said Yang Hu, an expert on China’s beauty industry with Euromonitor International, a market research firm.

One of Ms. Musk’s Chinese ad campaigns centers on her being Mr. Musk’s mother. The ad, for a baby care line, shows her encouraging disobedient children, over the text, “No leading figure of our time is raised following rules.”

Three days after the U.S. presidential election, she spoke about her son’s coming government role at an event in Shanghai to promote a mattress brand, saying, “He is definitely going to work on efficiency, but he really likes rockets and cars,” according to a clip posted by a state media outlet.

At New York Fashion Week in February, Ms. Musk modeled for the Chinese brand Juzui. Before taking to the runway, she told Women’s Wear Daily that she wants to explore work in new countries this year.

Eric Lipton contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.