An Open Letter to Secretary Rubio: A Bold US-China AI Deal Worth Adding to the Vatican Agenda

Rome — May 6th, 2026

The Honorable Marco Rubio, United States Secretary of State,

Mr. Secretary,

Welcome to Rome. You told reporters on Tuesday that you have "a lot to talk about" with Pope Leo XIV. We respectfully suggest one further item worthy of that list — and arguably the most consequential of your tenure: a US–China-led AI treaty-making process, framed as the very "cooperation of statesmen" that OSTP Director Michael Kratsios called for at the UN Security Council last September.

The case in brief. By now, 63% of US voters believe humans will eventually lose control over AI and 77% support a strong international AI treaty. A growing chorus of humanist frontier-lab CEOs (Altman, Amodei, Hassabis, Suleyman), influential conservative voices (Bannon, DeSantis, Beck, Carlson, Rogan), and global faith leaders converges on the same threat and are calling for a treaty — yet lacks a credible diplomatic vessel. You hold that vessel. As the Catholic Secretary of State who has kept Vatican channels open, and the chief diplomat with formal treaty-making authority, you are uniquely positioned to broker what could become President Trump's most enduring legacy.

The Stimson parallel. In September 1945, Secretary of War Henry Stimson advised President Truman to pursue nuclear control through direct bilateral talks with Moscow — not the UN or via Western allies. Truman chose the multilateral route instead, and history recorded the consequence. The modern equivalent is straightforward: a bilateral US–China deal first, addressing the most urgent and accessible AI risks (recursive self-improvement, biological misuse, AI-nuclear integration), launched at one of the four Trump–Xi summits scheduled for 2026, beginning this very month. Not a UN process the President rightly distrusts — Stimson's bilateral-first method, modernized. You could succeed for AI where Stimson failed for nuclear.

A deal that completes — not contradicts — the President Trump’s existing AI architecture. Such a treaty extends two initiatives Trump has already signed: the February 2025 US Sovereign Wealth Fund executive order and the November 2025 Genesis Mission — the latter notably excluding recursive self-improving AI from its scope. These would be expanded via treaty-enforced citizens' co-ownership mechanisms of leading AI and robotics firms to ensure durable fair sharing of AI wealth and power. The idea is already endorsed in some form by Altman, Amodei, Musk MAGA voices and the Bernie-to-Bannon Human Movement.

Remarkably, while fatally missing to coordinate with Stalin, Truman eventually presented to the UN the Baruch Plan — what is still today by far history’s boldest treaty proposal — providentially on June 14, 1946 — minutes from President Trump's birth. Eighty years later, that historical inheritance is his, and yours, to claim — or forfeit.

The Vatican is not merely a moral platform — it is already an active treaty proponent. Pope Francis called for a "binding international treaty" on AI in his December 2023 World Day of Peace message, and on June 14, 2024 — President Trump's birthday — became the first pontiff ever to address the G7, repeating that call to its assembled heads of state. In September 2025, Fr. Paolo Benanti — Pope Leo XIV's lead AI advisor and a member of the UN's AI Advisory Body — coordinated the Vatican-backed Global Appeal for Peaceful Human Coexistence and Shared Responsibility, which demands a "binding international treaty establishing red lines and an independent oversight institution with enforcement powers." Add the Antiqua et Nova doctrinal note (January 2025), the Rome Call for AI Ethics co-signed by eleven world religions in Hiroshima, and Pope Leo XIV's deliberate choice of regnal name — invoking Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, the encyclical written for the last industrial revolution — and the picture is unambiguous: the Vatican is not a target to be persuaded, but an ally already deployed.

That alliance is strategically decisive. US AI policy is today shaped disproportionately by a small, exceptionally well-resourced post-humanist faction for whom any treaty is suspect. The far larger constituency — frontier-lab CEOs increasingly calling for governance, faith leaders, conservative humanists, and the 77% of US voters who support a strong international AI treaty — agrees on the destination but lacks an institutional anchor. The Vatican is the world's most credible candidate to provide one. With its moral and convening authority visibly aligned with American leadership at the negotiating table, the philosophical asymmetry of the current US AI debate reverses overnight.

Our ask. Please consider reviewing CBPAI's Executive Summary (refreshed today), the 356-page Strategic Memo v2.6, and our Short Appeal to President Trump. We — a coalition of 10 NGOs and 20+ advisors, seeded by Jaan Tallinn's Survival and Flourishing Fund — would be honored to brief you or your staff in Rome, in Washington, or at our September 15–16 DC roundtable, "The Cooperation of Statesmen".

The window is narrow. The opportunity is yours to seize.

Respectfully,

Rufo Guerreschi Founder & Executive Director, Coalition for a Baruch Plan for AI rufo@trustlesscomputing.org | cbpai.org