The Trump–Meloni Breakup

“I was wrong” is how President Trump, not a man often given to regret, assesses his earlier enthusiasm for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. Mr. Trump told Corriere della Sera on Tuesday that he is “shocked by her” and that while “I thought she was brave, I was wrong.” He expounded that the Italian leader is “very different from what I thought” and “unacceptable.” The president had previously lauded the premier as “beautiful.” Che peccato. Signora Meloni is hardly blameless for this split between Rome and Washington. She has refused America the use of a base in Sicily during the war with Iran, and on Tuesday she froze a cooperation agreement with Israel that usually renews automatically. Signora Meloni has also risen to the defense of Pope Leo XIV. She denounced Mr. Trump’s critiques of the pontiff as “unacceptable” and said it is “right and normal” for the pope to call for peace.Mr. Trump vented that Signora Meloni “doesn’t want to help us with NATO, she doesn’t want to help us get rid of the nuclear weapon” and that “she says simply that Italy shouldn’t be involved. Even if Italy gets its oil there, even if America is very important for Italy. She doesn’t think Italy should be involved. She thinks America should do the job for her.” There is more than one kernel of truth in that accusation of continental complacency.Mr. Trump reckons that Iran would “blow Italy to smithereens in two minutes if it could.” Bloomberg, though, assesses that Signora Meloni’s motivations could be more mundane — she “has been on the back foot since a defeat in a key referendum last month and is facing a slowing economy and spiraling energy prices.” An Italian academic, Lorenzo Castellani, tells Bloomberg that Signora Meloni “has been looking for an assist to distance herself from Trump.”Our Rosario Iaconis reports that Signora Meloni could also be looking towards reelection. “More than a few pundits,” Mr. Iaconis relates, “are pushing Genoa’s telegenic mayor, Silvia Salis, whom they’ve dubbed the anti-Meloni, to run against the prime minister in the 2027 general election.” The current inhabitant of the Palazzo Doria Tursi is a leftist and a former Olympic hammer thrower who threw a techno party on Saturday that drew some 20,000 people.All of this is a stunning fall from, say, January 20, 2025, when Signora Meloni was the only European head of state to attend Mr. Trump’s second inauguration. Or March 2023, when she greeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Rome and lauded the leader of the Jewish state as a “friend and key partner of Italy.” Now Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, says curtly that his country’s “security will not be harmed” by the Roman volte face.Mr. Trump’s pique toward Signora Meloni is perhaps best understood in the context of the larger American frustration with the paltry European participation in the war effort, which the president reasons has been derelict at best. Mr. Trump also told Corriere della Sera that NATO is a “paper tiger,” and European capitals have hardly covered themselves in martial glory. Signora Meloni, alas, is beginning to revert to Continental form.

The Trump–Meloni Breakup

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