MILAN (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni was supposed to be Europe’s bridge to U.S. President Donald Trump. It may be burning.
After chastising Pope Leo XIV, Trump turned his ire on Meloni, long one of his closest European allies, for calling his papal broadside “unacceptable” and not backing the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.
“I thought she had courage,’’ Trump said in an interview with leading Italian daily Corriere della Sera. “I was wrong.”
Meloni has
not directly responded to Trump’s attacks. But they may be to her advantage as she recovers from a decisive referendum defeat last month and as she seeks to dull the impact of the deeply unpopular Iran war, including higher energy prices.
“I actually think this is a godsend for her,’’ said Nathalie Tocci, a professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe and the director of the International Affairs Institute. “Trump has become completely toxic across Europe, across much of the world, including Italy.”
Trump doubled down on Wednesday, saying their bond had frayed. “She’s been negative,” Trump told Fox News. “Anybody that turned us down to helping with this Iran situation, we do not have the same relationship.”
The only European Union leader invited to Trump’s second inauguration, Meloni was expected to leverage her strong ties with him once he returned to office 15 months ago. The two had a perceived natural alliance, with nationalistic tendencies and similarly hard-line stances on immigration.
But Italy was not spared the pain of Trump’s tariffs, and some may argue she has gotten little out of the relationship. When asked if they had spoken this month, Trump told Corriere, “No, not in a long time.''
After an uncomfortable appearance in the Oval Office a year ago when she avoided directly confronting Trump on tariffs, the distance grew over the Iran war. Meloni has stated Italy will not participate in the war and the country last month refused U.S. bombers the authorization to land at a pivotal air base in Sicily.
Meloni’s statement this week calling Trump's attack on the pope “unacceptable” was the most direct criticism of the president yet.
“It's been building up over time, not so much because she is moving away from him but because he has become increasingly unhinged,’’ Tocci said.
Cabinet minister Adolfo Urso, a member of Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy, said U.S.-Italy relations would not be shaken by the flap.
“Italy and the United States are allied countries and maintain their relationship and alliance within international institutions, starting obviously with the Atlantic Alliance,’’ he told Radio 24, adding that the church’s moral teachings “cannot crack relationships consecrated in alliances signed a few decades ago.”
Mariangela Zappia, president of the ISPI think tank and a former Italian ambassador to the U.S., said Trump’s “hot-blooded” reaction could be attributed to his frustration with Europe, not just Italy. Besides not getting support for the Iran war, Trump lost a strong ally with Viktor Orbán’s electoral defeat in the Hungarian elections this weekend.
Still, she said Trump's personal outburst aimed at Meloni should not be construed as damaging the alliance as a whole.
“Europe absolutely considers the United States its historic ally, but in some way wants to be involved in the decisions that are taken,’’ Zappia said.
Trump, on the other hand, is realizing “this European Union is not easy to dismantle,” she said. “We are different, we react differently. Some are clearly anti-Trump, some are pro-Trump but in the end, destroying the European project, separating us on the things on which we see as our future, that is very difficult.’’
Meloni has sought to shore up support after the referendum loss, which became a de facto confidence test of her leadership. She made a two-day whirlwind solo tour of three Gulf states to shore up Italy’s gas and oil supply from the region during a growing energy crisis but returned home without any formal deals.
On Tuesday, she announced Italy would not automatically renew a defense agreement with Israel, after warning shots hit an Italian convoy that is part of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, a move that analysts say is driven more by domestic politics than a strategic shift.
“The Gulf tour was a way to show public opinion that she was being proactive. The fact it didn’t actually lead to anything is beside the point,’’ Tocci said. The Israel move “substantively is rather meaningless because there is not much in this agreement but symbolically it helps because Israel has become just so unpopular in Italian public opinion.”
No matter what damage control she has done after the referendum loss, Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor at the LUISS school of government, predicts a difficult last year and a half of her mandate before elections due in 2027, largely due to the economic impact of the Iran war.
“People want to see their gas bills go down, not just see Meloni talk about gas. What matters are the bills you get every month,’’ he said.
