Italy’s Meloni, an Admirer of Trump, Is Due at Washington To Press the Principles of Free Trade

Prime Minister Meloni’s belief in Italy’s special relationship with America will be tested this week as she talks tariffs with President Trump.Though Mr. Trump has halted his reign of tariffs for 90 days, Signora Meloni knows full well that this three-month pause is but a respite prompted by plummeting global markets.This trip isn’t a social call or a formal state visit. Rather, Giorgia’s mission is an errand of necessity. Italy’s future and the Continent’s fortune hinge on the success of her sojourn.Unlike more vociferous European allies, though, the president of Italy’s Council of Ministers comes bearing genuine grit. That is, the conviction that economies predicated on free enterprise prosper via free trade.And as she enters the Oval office, Signora Meloni will be imbued with the spirit of the polymath Vilfredo Pareto, who pioneered the eponymous Pareto Optimality, or 80/20 Rule — something Mr. Trump has long understood from his New York real-estate development days.However, Signora Meloni will be invoking Pareto’s belief that tariffs are nothing short of “legalized plunder” that harm domestic consumers and retard economic innovation.While many nations have indeed slapped import taxes on American goods, the global economic order forged by the United States following World War II raised living standards and engendered prosperity around the world.Signora Meloni can remind Mr. Trump that the United States rebuked the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Act, rebuilding a devastated Western Europe — and forging a planet-wide economic renewal that increased the wealth of a plethora of nations.Indeed, globalization was the triumph of American capitalism writ large.Having openly declared that Mr. Trump’s tariff decision was “wrong,” Signora Meloni will argue that protectionism runs contrary to competition, the lifeblood of capitalism. And she’ll appeal to Mr. Trump’s competitive proclivities.The specter that a Europe bludgeoned by tariffs will turn to Communist China should alarm Mr. Trump. Surely, he knows that Cathay, which aspires to global economic supremacy and hegemonic military domination, represents the existential threat.“It is neither socialism nor capitalism,” Michael Ledeen has said of the Beijing regime, adding that “it is the infamous ‘third way’ of the corporate state, first institutionalized in the 1920s by the founder of fascism, Benito Mussolini.”Writing in the Wall Street Journal 23 years ago, Mr. Ledeen presaged what China would become. Though China had embraced the market mechanism, Mr. Ledeen deduced the Middle Kingdom’s new orientation. Signora Meloni doesn’t have to remind Mr. Trump that the Communist Chinese juggernaut is on the move. After President Xi said China and Europe ought to “jointly resist unilateral bullying practices,” the Chinese leader embarked on a tour of Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia.Meanwhile, President Trump’s tariff policy shares “some hallmarks of the infamous ‘Nixon shock,’” which included price controls, the end of the gold standard-dollar tethering, and a 10 percent import tariff, says the vice chairman at Oliver Wyman, Huw Van Steenis, in an op-ed in the Financial Times. After Nixon’s move, global economic instability and virulent stagflation ensued.Signora Meloni can help save Mr. Trump from such a fate. While she is not quite holding a royal flush,* the prime minister’s cards are ample: Italy will achieve a 2 percent level of military spending in three years; the logic is for the Magic Boot, the European Union, and the United States to commit to a mutual zero to zero tariff policy; and Signora Meloni will prevail upon Brussels to abandon any trading axis between the EU and Beijing.Moreover, Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings upgrade of Italy’s rating to BBB+ “reflects Italy’s improved economic, external, and monetary buffers amid rising global headwinds, and the gradual progress it has made in stabilizing public finances since the pandemic’s onset.”Signora Meloni’s journey to Washington sends a clear signal to the White House that the visit to China by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, will not be the order of the day.“The United States is our principal interlocutor,” echoed Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, refuting Madrid’s feckless opening to the People’s Republic. The head of Spain’s right-wing Vox party, Santiago Abascal, hailed the Magic Boot’s global leadership: “Italy is without a doubt a fortunate nation and a well-governed one, especially in these turbulent times.”________* A Ten, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace, all of the same suit; it can be beaten only by five of a kind.

Italy’s Meloni, an Admirer of Trump, Is Due at Washington To Press the Principles of Free Trade

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