Italy’s Meloni Heads to D.C. Will Her Relationship With Trump Pay Off for Europe?

 

Italy’s Meloni Heads to D.C. Will Her Relationship With Trump Pay Off for Europe?

 

The stakes are high as Giorgia Meloni, a conservative who shares some of Mr. Trump’s nationalist ideology, meets with him on Thursday as his trade war has frayed nerves worldwide.

 

Emma Bubola Jeanna Smialek

By Emma Bubola and Jeanna Smialek

Reporting from Rome and Brussels

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/world/middleeast/italy-meloni-trump.html?searchResultPosition=5

Published April 16, 2025

Updated April 17, 2025, 2:18 a.m. ET

 

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy will become the latest in a line of European leaders to flock to Washington with the goal of currying favor and improving relations with President Trump.

 

But Ms. Meloni’s trip this week has stirred more hopes — and fears — than the visits of some earlier European leaders to the White House because of the unique position she holds on the continent.

 

Her right-wing background has long positioned her as a potential ally of Mr. Trump’s, and she was invited to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration, unlike other European leaders. Those credentials have helped stoke speculation that Ms. Meloni could visit the White House with an Italy-first approach, looking to strike deals for her country and threatening to undermine European unity.

 

But many diplomats and officials push back on such concerns, in part because Ms. Meloni has made a name for herself in recent months as a collaborative player on the European stage.

 

To Ms. Meloni’s fans, this is a moment ripe with opportunity. To others, it is an important test of whether she can use her affinity with Mr. Trump to help Italy, and Europe.

 

“Italy will find out how much it can claim a special relationship with the United States,” said Giovanni Orsina, the head of the political science department at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome.

 

The visit unquestionably comes a time of high stakes: The 27-nation European Union relies on the United States as its most important trading partner, and Mr. Trump’s trade war threatens to upend that.

 

Mr. Trump’s threats of imposing punishing tariffs, beyond those already in place, could dent demand for everything from Chianti to chemicals — and the European economy hangs in the balance, as leaders try to persuade Mr. Trump to relent.

 

“She will play a facilitator,” between the European Commission and the United States, Italy’s minister for enterprises, Adolfo Urso, said in an interview. He added that Ms. Meloni could count not only on a long-established bilateral relationship between Italy and the United States, but also on “a personal relationship that was consolidated between Meloni and Trump.”

 

Top-level European Union officials have struggled to meet with their American counterparts. Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has not been able to speak with President Trump since he retook office, despite trying.

 

National leaders have had better luck, at least in winning an audience. France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s leader Keir Starmer and Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin have all met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office.

 

Many see Ms. Meloni’s trip as a continuation of those efforts.

 

“Any outreach to the U.S. is welcome,” Arianna Podesta, the European Commission’s deputy chief spokeswoman, told reporters on Monday about Ms. Meloni’s trip, adding later that the trip was also “closely coordinated.”

 

Ms. Podesta said on Wednesday that Ms. Von der Leyen and Ms. Meloni spoke by phone on Tuesday evening, and called having contact with the Americans “extremely positive.”

 

Still, Ms. Meloni’s visit has caused unease in some quarters. French Industry Minister Marc Ferracci told a French broadcaster that there was a risk that the visit could break the continent’s unity. In Brussels and in Italy, opponents have said that Ms. Meloni’s visit to Washington will reveal how loyal she is to Europe, at a time when Mr. Trump and his allies continue to portray Europe’s leadership as feckless.

 

“This is the moment of truth for our prime minister,” Italy’s former development minister and opposition politician Carlo Calenda said in a statement. “We will see whether she is a leader that keeps the European front united, or if she will give in to the flattery of the US president.”

 

For weeks, Mr. Trump’s actions — threatening widespread tariffs and tilting toward Russia — have increasingly strained Ms. Meloni’s delicate balancing act.

 

A nationalist conservative, she has called Elon Musk a friend and received praise from Mr. Trump, who has called her a “wonderful woman.” And she has often sought to have it both ways, nurturing bilateral ties with Mr. Trump while preserving Italy’s role within a united E.U.

 

But every new step by Mr. Trump has highlighted her attempts not to strongly take a side. Although she has been a strong supporter of Ukraine, she did not, like other European leaders, rebuke Mr. Trump after his dressing down of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. She also spoke at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland in February, and called for the E.U. not to escalate or retaliate on tariffs, and she has continued that mantra even after Mr. Trump threw the world into a tailspin with wide-ranging tariffs.

 

On the other hand, she has often fallen in line with the rest of Europe at crucial moments. When European nations voted to impose counter tariffs in response to Mr. Trump’s steel and aluminum levies, for instance, only Hungary opposed the move. Italy joined the 25 other member states in supporting retaliation. (Europe has since walked back those retaliative tariffs, at least temporarily, in response to Mr. Trump’s decision to hit “pause” on some tariffs for 90 days to allow time for negotiations.)

 

Ms. Meloni also has said that Mr. Trump’s tariffs were “wrong,” and, in the run-up to her trip, she did not signal any intention to obtain special carve outs for Italy.

 

“Europe’s industrial supply chains are now intertwined,” Mr. Urso, her minister for enterprises, said. “We certainly do not want to divide Europe.”

 

European officials are currently trying to push their American counterparts to negotiate. Officials are offering economic carrots, including the possibility of cutting tariffs on cars and other industrial goods and ramping up European purchases of natural gas, while also threatening to retaliate if no deal can be reached.

 

Even those who are skeptical of Ms. Meloni have pointed out that she has good reason to toe the European line in Washington on Thursday: Italy may be a large economy, but the E.U. as a whole is more powerful in winning concessions when it is united.

 

“It is an important moment for Italy,” Mr. Orsina, the analyst, said. “And it may be an important one for Europe, too.”

 

As for Ms. Meloni, she seems to be under no illusions about the import of her meeting with Mr. Trump.

 

“I am feeling no pressure for my next two days,” Ms. Meloni joked on Tuesday afternoon as she spoke at an awards ceremony in Rome. “We will do our best,” she said, adding: “I am aware of what I represent, and I am aware of what I am defending.”

 

Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome.

 

Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.