Meloni and Trump: A very public fall-out that is proving very hard to fix

EPA-EFE/REX/ShutterstockRelations between Italy's prime minister and President Trump have worsened considerably since 2025There is an AI-generated meme doing the rounds on social media in Italy that shows Giorgia Meloni doing all the things you might expect from someone fresh out of a tough break-up. In one fake photo she has a new haircut; in others she is imagined booking herself on a singles' holiday, training for a marathon and creating a profile on a dating app.Of course none of the images are real, but the joke has landed because it captures the very public political fall-out between the Italian prime minister and US President Donald Trump.Their relationship has over the past few months gone from public attacks to personal insults and back again, cooling what used to be one of the most watched alliances in European politics. It was not that long ago that Meloni was being called the "Trump whisperer", and she was the only European leader with a front-row seat at his January 2025 inauguration.ReutersLast April, she was also the EU leader of choice to head to the White House for a meeting aimed at easing tensions over US tariffs on European goods.For someone who started out on the fringes of Italian politics, with her roots in Italy's post-fascist tradition, and who has spent years trying to rebrand herself as a moderate, credible face of the European right, that closeness to Trump was never just seen by observers as a useful diplomatic tie.It was proof, on the biggest stage available, that she belonged there.But Trump's unpredictability has proved difficult for Meloni to handle, denting her credibility both nationally and internationally. The first real fracture came in late March, when Italy's defence ministry refused to let US military aircraft bound for the Middle East use the Nato airbase at Sigonella in Sicily without parliamentary approval, a decision rooted in Italy's constitution and the public's deep opposition to the war. Weeks later the row deepened. Trump attacked Pope Leo XIV on Truth Social in April over the pontiff's criticism of the war, calling him "weak on crime". Meloni, governing a deeply Catholic country, called the attack "unacceptable".Trump did not take it well. "I'm shocked at her," he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera. "I thought she had courage, but I was wrong." He added: "She is unacceptable... she is not the same person, Italy is not the same country."By June things seemed to be getting better. At the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains in France, Trump and Meloni were photographed deep in conversation on a sofa, and Italian officials spoke of a "clarifying discussion".Meloni told reporters the atmosphere had been "very positive," with "no friction".Handout via REUTERSGiorgia Meloni was pictured talking to the US president on a sofa at the G7 summit in FranceJournalists barely had time to file the story before it fell apart again.Days later, Trump told Italian broadcaster La7 that Meloni had "begged" him for a photo at the summit, in a phone interview dubbed in Italian and never aired in English. "She wanted a picture with me so badly," Trump's Italian voiceover said. "I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her."Meloni did not wait long to respond. She posted a video, delivered in Italian, calling Trump's account "completely fabricated.""I don't know why the president of the United States behaves this way toward his own allies," she said. "I can only say it's a pity he doesn't show the same resolve toward the enemies of the West... But there's one thing he must remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg."Italy's foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, cancelled a planned trip to Washington. Reaction in Italy was swift and across the political spectrum. Italian President Sergio Mattarella phoned her to express solidarity. Meloni's government colleagues and MPs called the remarks offensive, damaging to Italy's dignity and deserving of an apology, while opposition members condemned the comments as an unacceptable affront to the country as a whole.Trump doubled down from Camp David, insisting on Truth Social that she had asked "over and over" for the photo and accusing her of trying to be "friends again" now that the US had "defeated Iran militarily".Just as that dispute seemed to be cooling, a separate row re-opened over military bases. Last Wednesday, Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte told Fox News that around 500 US aircraft had taken off from American bases in Italy in support of "Operation Epic Fury", the codename for the US-Israeli campaign against Iran. It was part of what he described as broader European support running into thousands of flights across the continent.Rome did not take it well. Italy's defence ministry called Rutte's account "fallacious" and "totally misleading", insisting it had only ever authorised technical and logistical flights, not combat operations, and had refused any request that crossed that line. A Nato spokesperson later clarified that Rutte had simply meant to highlight how allies, Italy included, had honoured existing bilateral basing agreements. Those remarks have stirred a political row in Italy where Meloni's government has repeatedly said it did not authorise the use of Italian territory for direct military action against Iran.For Meloni, who has had a difficult few months following her recent defeat in a constitutional referendum and faces an election in the coming year, some big questions remain.How will she reposition herself on the international political spectrum? What next for her uneasy alliance with France's Emmanuel Macron, for so long her political "frenemy" but now increasingly important to her standing? And most of all, will she and Trump ever make up?"This might be a tough situation to turn around," said Gianni Riotta, author and vice chairman of the Council for the United States and Italy."Meloni's ability to build a bridge now looks like a mere illusion, she couldn't stand between Europe and the US," he told the BBC."She tried to please both sides, on Ukraine, on tariffs. Then the Pope broke it: she had to back him, and Trump doesn't accept that. Trump has had a friend-or-foe outlook since his property days in New York, you're either with me or against me, and once that understanding broke down, he pushed harder, and Meloni played up her tough-woman image."In Rome's diplomatic circles, nobody wants a full rupture. Reports earlier this week suggested several government ministers were ready to skip the US Embassy's Independence Day reception at Villa Taverna, brought forward this year to 2 July, in solidarity with Meloni, who is not expected to attend regardless. That mood has since softened. Tajani has said he will go "with my head held high", and allies of the prime minister now suggest the boycott talk has cooled into a quieter "everyone's free to do as they please".But the real test will come at the Nato summit in Ankara early next month, when Trump and Meloni are due to be, for the first time since the G7, in the same room again.