A nationalist with deep admiration for Donald Trump, she is battling to reconcile the growing gulf between her ideological instincts, which lie with Washington, and Italy’s strategic ties to the EU
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni finds herself playing a political balancing act as Europe moves to bolster its defences. A nationalist with deep admiration for US President Donald Trump, she is battling to reconcile the growing gulf between her ideological instincts, which lie with Washington, and Italy’s strategic ties to the European Union, analysts say.
Meloni was the only EU leader to attend Trump’s inauguration in January and has carefully steered clear of any criticism of the US president, even as he has hit Europe with tariffs and threatened to abandon Ukraine in its war with Russia.
While she has taken part in emergency talks with European partners on how to navigate the upheavals caused by Trump’s foreign policy, her engagement at times has seemed unenthusiastic, prompting critics at home to accuse her of isolating Italy within the EU.
Meloni, who has been in power since 2023, dismissed suggestions that she was under the sway of Trump as she headed into a summit of European leaders this week.
“I don’t blindly follow either Europe or the United States … I am in Europe because Italy is in Europe, so it’s not like we’re thinking of going somewhere else, but I also want the West to be compact,” she told parliament.
Ever since Meloni founded her Brothers of Italy group in 2012, she has placed close ties with the United States at the heart of her foreign policy, while watering down initial, fierce euroskepticism.
Trump’s strong-arm tactics with old allies as he looks to enhance American power has wrong-footed pro-Atlanticists, while forcing Europe to hastily review its geopolitical options and shore up its defenses.
The turmoil has put on hold Meloni’s hopes of serving as a bridge between Europe and the White House, with Europe’s two nuclear powers France and Britain taking the lead in forging a response to Trump, while Germany grabs headlines with plans for a huge spending splurge to scale up its military.
“Right now, Meloni does not have the leverage to play a mediating role with Trump,” said Giovanni Orsina, a politics professor at Rome’s Luiss University.
“If Trumpism enters a second, more constructive phase, she might be able to play a role, leveraging political and personal affinities.”
Meloni last month called for an “immediate summit” between the US and its allies after Trump lambasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, but Washington ignored her appeal.
Sources in Meloni’s office, who declined to be named, said the Italian leader was seeking a meeting with Trump later in March or early April, when the European Union is due to impose counter tariffs on 26 billion euros ($28 billion) worth of US goods in response to US tariffs on steel and aluminum.
In her address to parliament this week, Meloni questioned the wisdom of retaliatory tariffs and urged Europe to continue its military cooperation with the United States inside NATO.
Spooked by Trump’s suggestion he might not defend NATO members in future, the European Commission has laid out plans to boost the bloc’s military spending by 800 billion euros ($869 billion), while France has offered to consider extending its nuclear umbrella to European allies.
The Italian premier has also proposed hosting a summit between European leaders and the US, to build bridges after the relationship between the long-time allies strained over the war in Ukraine.
Meloni says she found Zelenskyy to be very “lucid, rational as always” in Sunday’s meeting, as she expressed her sympathy for the Ukrainian leader after his spat with Trump, who together with US Vice President JD Vance, berated and belittled him.
She also noted that she sees in Zelenskyy someone who wants to “look for solutions” and “continue working to seek solutions” to find a way to end the more than three-year tragedy unfolding in his country.
The Italian leader stressed that Italy, Europe, NATO and the United States all share the same goal, which is arriving at a lasting and just peace in Ukraine. She also urged leaders to prioritise unity, warning that a division of the West would be “fatal for everyone,” particularly Ukraine.
“The only thing that we really cannot afford is a peace that does not remain, and this cannot be afforded, Ukraine cannot afford it, Europe cannot afford it, the United States cannot afford it.”
“For God’s sake, everything can explode, it’s not good news. So everything I can do to keep the West united and to strengthen it, I will do,” added Meloni.
