Italy's
Meloni boosts ties with Trump in surprise Florida visit
By Reuters
January 5,
20253:26 PM GMT+1Updated an hour ago
Meloni
seeks to strengthen ties with Trump before his inauguration
Trump
says Meloni 'taken Europe by storm'
Meeting
highlights Italy's potential as EU-US diplomatic bridge, says minister
WEST PALM
BEACH, Florida/ROME, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni
made a surprise trip to Florida to meet with Donald Trump late on Saturday, as
the key European leader sought to strengthen ties with the president-elect
before his inauguration on Jan. 20.
No details
of the talks were released, but Italian deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini
said on Sunday they covered a range of issues including the plight of Cecilia
Sala, an Italian journalist detained last month in Iran.
"Well
done Giorgia Meloni for visiting Donald Trump to talk about peace, industrial
and commercial cooperation, security, and the freeing of Cecilia Sala,"
Salvini, leader of the League coalition party, posted on X.
Members of
Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort welcomed Meloni with applause after an introduction
by the president-elect, according to videos shared on social media by reporters
and others.
"This
is very exciting. I'm here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of
Italy," Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report.
"She’s really taken Europe by storm."
Meloni is
seen as a potentially strong partner for Trump given her conservative
credentials and the stability of the right-wing coalition she has led in Italy
since late 2022. Meloni has also forged a close relationship with billionaire
tech CEO Elon Musk, a close Trump ally.
Tommaso
Foti, Italy's EU and regional affairs minister, said on Sunday that the
meeting, which had not been announced in advance, showed that Italy could act
as "a diplomatic bridge between two worlds: the European Union and the
USA".
Meloni's
trip comes days before she is to meet U.S. President Joe Biden during a visit
to Rome from Thursday to Jan. 12. Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris
in the November election and is preparing to return to the White House.
Trump and
Meloni watched a screening of a documentary questioning the criminal
investigations and legal scrutiny faced by John Eastman, a former Trump lawyer
who was central to Trump's unsuccessful efforts to overturn his 2020 election
loss.
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