Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said she expected dealings with US President Donald Trump to be easier, given how closely the two align on immigration and on what she called woke culture. Things had turned out differently, she told The New York Times in an interview published on August 21.
Meloni said she and Trump had not spoken for several weeks. Asked whether the two would talk once the summer break ended, she replied that they would see.
She said she still regarded the unity of the West as fundamental and did not set Italian strategy according to her personal relationships. She also rejected the idea of a submissive Italy, or one that considered itself inferior to others.
The relationship broke down in public in June, when Trump told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni had “begged” him for a photograph at the G7 summit in Évian, eastern France, and that he had agreed only because he felt sorry for her.
Meloni called the account completely made up and said that neither she nor Italy ever begged. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cancelled a trip to Washington in protest.
Trump then wrote on Truth Social that Meloni was faring badly in Italian opinion polls. She replied that being his friend had not helped her standing and that the repeated attacks made no sense.
The rift had opened earlier over the war with Iran. Rome refused landing rights at the Sigonella naval air station in Sicily in late March to US aircraft whose flight plans were linked to strikes on Iran, on the grounds that Washington had not sought the required authorisation.
Italy has since rejected NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s claim that hundreds of US aircraft used bases on its territory during the campaign, saying it had cleared only technical and logistical flights.
Meloni was the only European head of government to attend Trump’s inauguration in January 2025 and spent much of that year presenting herself as a bridge between the White House and the European Union.
The two last appeared together at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8, where Trump criticised allies that had declined to help with the strikes on Iran. Meloni told reporters there that Italy’s line on the bases had not changed since the start of the conflict and that the country was not taking part.
