Research assistant in the international affairs unit
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited the United States for the second time after visiting Trump in Mar-a-Logo, Florida in Jan 5, 2025 to congratulate him on his inauguration, and they held the first official meeting in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 17, 2025, where they aimed to promote the bilateral relations between both countries and strengthen their strategic alliance across NATO, and further enhancing their cooperation in economic and technological issues, and this visit came after a number of crucial issues that occupy Rome’s mind such as the security aspects in Europe regarding the Russian-Ukrainian war and the economic repercussions of Trump’s trade war on the world including the EU. So, in this report we will try to highlight how important this visit represent to Italy and the EU.
Meloni as the best choice to represent the EU in dealing with Trump
It is very hard in such circumstances for a leader to maintain good relations with two disputing sides, and Meloni is one of the few that has such an ability to do so, as she maintains strong relations both with Trump and the European leaders, in addition to the common personal characteristics between them, as they are both two populist and conservative leaders, they share the same ideology that made her the appropriate person to speak with Trump, and that’s also the same point of view to the American side as said by one of Trump’s aide “We certainly see her as a valuable interlocutor with the EU,” the official said. And in Sometimes we feel the fact that Meloni is closer to Trump than its neighbors, the European leaders, and it seems clear in its point of view to some issues especially the one related to illegal immigration.[1]
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said that “Meloni isn’t going to negotiate for Italy against Europe but is going to champion a European stance”, in words that could be read that the EU has given a mandate to Italy to represent and negotiate on its behalf, especially at a time when the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen cannot hold a meeting with Trump to discuss the tariffs issue with him.
And unlike France’s Emmanuel Macron, Britain’s Keir Starmer or Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky visit in February that ended in a controversial points of view with Trump, Meloni did not take the same path like the previous leaders in its meeting with Trump, as she knows well how to deal with a populist leader like her, so she did not try to persuade him with a certain ideas when it comes to Ukraine or the EU, instead she tried to secure promises from Trump to make a deal with the EU regarding the custom tariffs, and he actually said “There will be a trade deal, 100 percent”, so it seems like the meeting went on a good way and made a glimmer of hope to have a deal between the U.S. and EU instead of trade war.[2]
Meloni invited Trump to visit Rome for a meeting with the European leaders, and he accepted her invitation, but they did not specify the date of the visit, and suddenly Europeans goes through a period of grief and mourning for the death of Pope Francis, and Trump announced on the Truth Social platform that he will attend the funeral scheduled for next Saturday, which means his visit to Rome, which will mark his first foreign trip after his inauguration, but it is still uncertain whether the European leaders will take advantage of this sad occasion and turn it into an opportunity to meet Trump and discuss with him the issues that have plagued them or not.[3]
The importance of the visit from an economic perspective
The United States represents one of the biggest importers from Italy by around $76bn, as it is considered Italy’s third biggest non-EU trading partner, this comes in a fluctuating time that no one can predict the next step of the American president and businessman D. Trump, as he imposed 20% reciprocal custom tariffs on the EU and then he suspended it for 90 days to allow a chance for the countries that want to negotiate trade deals with the U.S. administration.[4] It should be noted that there is still a 10% global tariffs imposed on all the imports that enter the United States, and Meloni is aiming to have a zero-for-zero tariffs “ zero-tariff agreement”.
So, despite the tariff pause, and with an unpredicted man like Trump in the office, there will always be an economic instability and warnings to the EU and other countries in the world for the next four years, and starting from that point, Meloni tries to do her best to bridge the gap and disagreement between the U.S. and EU, with the fact that Trump is not a big fan to Europe as he said in their meeting, so the mission for Meloni is not that easy, she walks in a very tightrope between fix the trade issues between both partners and dealing with Trump’s view to the EU as a small China or when he said once a time that the EU was created to “screw” the US.[5]
Meloni cannot abandon the European Union as it is completely linked to the policies of the Union and subordinate to it, and also does not want to abandon the United States and tries hard not to put the Union in a collision with Washington, as it will be a very bad economic situation to Rome and to the whole Union which has a very deep economic ties with the US and deeply dependent on it, so one of the greatest outcomes of the meeting about the tariffs issue was a promise from Trump with a trade deal, as he said “There will be a trade deal, 100 percent, Of course there will be a trade deal. They want to make one very much, and we are going to make a trade deal, I fully expect it, but it will be a fair deal.” [6]
Another major point is the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor, as Trump wants this Corridor to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, and also because of its economic and strategic importance to the United States, so the cooperation with Italy is crucial in this matter because the route will start from India, and pass through the Gulf to Israel, to Italy from the Mediterranean, and directly to the United States.[7]
Make The West Great Again
“The goal for me is to make the West great again, and I think we can do it together.” By this sentence we can say that Meloni is the kind of a person that knows what, how, and when to say something that has a lot of signals behind, and she asserted from the get-go of the meeting on the mutual ground between both governments, as she shares the same orientations towards the anti-migration policies with Trump, she said “We both share another fight, which is the fight against the woke and DEI ideology that would like to erase our history,” by these two sentences Meloni got the admiration of the extremist Republicans in the oval house, she is a pure conservative and populist leader, the type of the leader that Trump like to deal with.[8]
This hope seems hardly to achieve with Trump, as he does not have such an interest, his sight to Europe is totally different, he sees them as competitors not allies, in addition to his hate to the liberal ideas that most of the western countries are adopting, so it seems clear that he favors to deal with persons with the same ideology rather than a named state that historically known as an ally to the US, and his open to Russia is a major proof to that point.
One of the journalist attendees in the oval office asked Trump if he thinks that Italy can be his best ally in Europe, and he replied simply “Only if the PM Meloni remains the PM can it be our best ally”, and it is not a compliment, it is a fact, he only thinks of people with the same ideology as his allies, so with so much difference between Trump and most European leaders, it is hard to embrace such an idea.
Finally, it is hard to anticipate what’s going on in a very fluctuated international system specially after the beginning of Trump’s second term and his adopting to “MAGA” and “America First” policies, and the trade war he is launching against China and the whole world, even against US major allies the EU and Canada, so the mission for Meloni to bring back things as it was or at least to find a common ground between the EU and Trump will not be that easy, but she seems optimistic to have a trade deal between Trump and the EU, and in the coming days and months we are likely to see intensified work by European countries, led by Italy, at the forefront of negotiations, to secure a trade deal with Trump before the resumption of tariffs on the EU set at 20% after the 90-day suspension deadline expires.
References
[1] Kevin Liptak, “Trump finds kindred European spirit in Meloni”, CNN, April 17, 2025.
