Meloni’s Trump trouble: Why Italian PM is distancing herself from US leader

The Italian leader’s cosy alliance with Trump may have become more of a liability than an asset as key elections approach.At the January 2025 inauguration of United States President Donald Trump, only one European leader was on the guest list – Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s right-wing prime minister. The month before, she had been pictured holding an intimate tete-a-tete with Trump in the dining room of the Elysee Palace, where France’s President Emmanuel Macron was hosting a celebration for the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.From the very start of Trump’s second term as US president, Meloni – once at the fringe of Italian politics with her particular brand of neoliberalist, far-right views – was seen as the “chosen one”, the European leader Trump said he could work with to “straighten out the world a little bit”. He affectionately referred to her as “a real live wire” during her visit to the White House in April last year – once again, the first European leader to make the trip after Trump announced sweeping global trade tariffs.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3What’s Israel’s death penalty law that only applies to Palestinians?list 2 of 3Italy out as Bosnia and Herzegovina reach World Cup 2026 on penaltieslist 3 of 3UK to host meeting of 35 countries on reopening Strait of Hormuzend of listMeloni lapped it up. Presenting herself to the world as the only European who could de-escalate Trump’s trade war, she called him a “brilliant man” and asserted that, with him, she would “make the West great again“.A little over a year later, that bonhomie now stands punctured – with Trump’s war on Iran the trigger.“When we don’t agree, we must say it. And this time, we do not agree,” she said last weekend, of the US-Israeli war on Iran, during her visit to the Gulf region – the first by a Western leader since the start of the war.Along with the Italian authorities’ refusal to allow US bombers to refuel at a military base in southern Italy a week before, Meloni’s words were the starkest sign yet that she is finally saying “No” to Donald Trump.US President Donald Trump meets with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, on April 17, 2025 [File: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters]A crumbling bridge“She wanted to play the role of the bridge between Trump and European allies, and this initially looked like a good idea,” said Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor of political science at Luiss University in Rome. “But today it has become a liability and she is trying to correct this.”