It was mission accomplished on Thursday night for Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s Prime Minister, who navigated her White House meeting with Donald Trump with poise, earning her lavish praise and a “100 per cent” promise of a trade deal from the US President.
In doing so, Meloni can stake her claim as Europe’s ‘Trump whisperer,’ a rare foreign leader who can soothe the President’s fury and chaotic reflexes.
In a joint appearance in the Oval Office after their meeting, Trump hailed Meloni, as “a great talent…one of the real leaders of the world…who everybody loves…and respects.”
He suggested that the US was close to clinching an agreement with the EU that could end the tariff onslaught that he has unleashed over the past few weeks.
“Oh there’ll be a trade deal, 100 per cent,” he said. “They want to make one very much, and we’re going to make a trade deal, I fully expect it and it’ll be a fair trade deal.”
Trump later announced plans to visit Italy, while Meloni hosted Vice-President JD Vance on Friday. Italy will also host the next phase of the US-Iran nuclear talks this weekend.
The show of admiration and friendship may not be a concrete achievement. But it is further proof that Meloni has more access to Trump’s graces than any other European leader.
It was, after all, just two months ago that Trump and his Vice President JD Vance combined in that same Oval Office to publicly berate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky – a humiliating spectacle that horrified Kyiv’s allies.
However, the 48-year-old, who has headed Italy’s hard-right coalition government since 2022, has craftily cultivated ties with Trumpworld in recent years, notably building a close friendship with tech billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk, who has feted her as “someone who is even more beautiful on the inside than she is on the outside.”
Trump and Meloni first met at the reopening of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral in December, and it was followed by her visit to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. Meloni was also the only European leader to attend Trump’s inauguration in January.
The two leaders meet the press in the Oval Office (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)It helps that the two share the same ultra-nationalist, immigrant-bashing and anti-woke instincts, as well as authoritarian edges. While Trump, who openly admires dictators, is undermining democratic guardrails in the US, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party began as a post-fascist party.
This has spared Meloni some of the ire that Trump’s team have lobbed at other European countries over defence spending: while she has pledged to raise her defence budget, Italy is one of the lowest spenders amongst Nato members, at less than 1.5 per cent of GDP, well below the 2 per cent minimum for the alliance.
Meloni is also particularly vulnerable to Trump’s tariffs: Italy’s export-driven economy has a trade surplus of €42bn (£36bn) with the US.
Yet she is also deeply committed to the EU and has proved a reliable supporter of Ukraine. If she can succeed in mollifying Trump, it might serve both Italy and the EU especially given his long-standing claims that the bloc was set up to “screw” the US, and in the wake of revelations that the president’s top advisers have belittled the EU as “pathetic”.
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Read MoreWhile Trump has met with Britain’s Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks, they could not boast the same warm ambience as his meeting with Meloni. And Trump has not even had any conversation this year with Germany’s Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz or European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
So much as it may annoy the leaders in London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin, she can claim to be the closest Europe has to a Trump whisperer.
There are limits, however. Italy is still a political dwarf within Europe: it does not have the military heft of France or Britain, nor does it lead on key issues within the EU. And Meloni’s hard-right leanings will always keep her away from the European mainstream, which will remain suspicious of her.
Nathalie Tocci, director of the Rome-based Institute of International Affairs, noted the “ideological affinity” between Trump and Meloni, but suggested it may not benefit her country.
“The Maga movement will damage all European countries, Italy included,” she said. “On issues such as trade and regulating technology, far-right governments even risk becoming Trojan horses in the EU. By slowing or blocking policies aimed at making Europe a stronger collective actor, they serve Trump’s desire to see Europe weak and divided.”
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