As Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni prepared to travel to Washington, she was betting that her ideological rapport with US President Donald Trump could help convince him of the value of the transatlantic alliance, despite his frequent belittling of it.
She got it partially right.
The two met at the White House on Thursday, making Meloni the first European leader to visit Trump since he announced sweeping new tariffs on goods earlier this month. It came amid a US retreat from NATO and wavering support for Ukraine against Russia's full-scale invasion.
Speaking to Meloni, Trump said “there’ll be a trade deal, 100 per cent” with the European Union before the end of the 90-day freeze on tariffs that he implemented shortly after calling for them. He also promised to visit Rome “in the near future," which could include other European officials. If that plays out, it would further strengthen Meloni's image as a bridge between Washington and Brussels.
Beyond trade, the two leaders bonded over their shared nativist and civilisational worldviews. Picking up on Trump’s signature slogan, Meloni said that she wanted to make the “West great again.”
What that means in real terms, and if Trump will meet Meloni's “zero-for-zero" tariff proposal between the EU and the US, remains anyone's guess.
“It's a key meeting for Italy and for Meloni,” said Giovanni Orsina, who heads the political science department at Luiss Guido Carli University. He noted that her weeks-long preparation reflects “hopes to get something tangible out of it — whether it’s related to Ukraine, bilateral relations, or broader EU issues.”
Inside Meloni’s strategy
Trump's re-election has bolstered Meloni's position within the EU. In addition to their overlapping positions, she has appeared close to Elon Musk — one of Trump's closest advisors.
For months, Meloni has carefully avoided picking sides between the US and the EU — a strategy that has placed her on shaky middle ground. At the height of a diplomatic spat between Washington and Kyiv in early March, she stood out as the only major EU leader who, rather than condemn Trump’s decision to slash military aid to Ukraine, called for an EU–US summit to repair transatlantic ties.
Meloni has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine since taking office in 2022. To analysts well-versed in Italian foreign policy, her consistent emphasis on preserving transatlantic unity is hardly surprising.
“Meloni is following a traditional path in Italy’s right-wing playbook, which has historically favoured a more direct relationship with Washington over Brussels,” said Filippo Simonelli, a researcher at the IAI Institute for International Affairs, a Rome-based think tank.
Still, her determination to avoid alienating Trump’s America was put to the test when the president initially hit the EU with a 20% tariff, above his “baseline” 10% rate. Meloni quickly condemned the move as “wrong” and said that tariffs were “in no one’s interest.”
The stakes are high for Italy — second only to Germany within the EU as an export-driven economy for which the US is its second-largest market. A more protectionist US trade policy could cost Italy billions of euros that will be nearly impossible to compensate for elsewhere, according to Italian industry association Confindustria.
EU unity or Italy-first?
Meloni’s visit to Washington fueled a mix of anxiety and hope among European leaders, EU diplomats said. France, in particular, voiced fears that her solo expedition risked undermining a unified negotiating stance. Comments to that effect by France's ministry for industry, Marc Ferracci, triggered a prompt response from Rome.
"Why is it that when President [Emmanuel] Macron goes to Washington, everything seems to be fine, but when Meloni goes, it isn’t?” retorted Italy’s minister for European affairs, Tommaso Foti.
The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, negotiates for the bloc as a whole on trade policy. That means that national leaders like Meloni and Macron can try to exert pressure to shape the Commission’s negotiating stance, but cannot officially strike a deal with a trade partner like the US.
Meloni made that distinction clear while meeting Trump. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Meloni have been in “regular contact,” Commission spokesperson Arianna Podestà said earlier this week. Officially, Von der Leyen has said she supports all European efforts to reach out to the US administration.
Diplomatic gains?
If recent diplomatic missions to Trump’s new White House are any indication, Meloni’s gains in Washington were expected to be modest.
Earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a long-standing Trump ally — travelled to Washington seeking an exemption from a newly imposed 17% tariff on Israeli goods. The meeting not only failed to shift Trump’s trade stance, but also ended in a promise from Netanyahu to completely remove Israel’s already negligible tariffs on US products.
In February, France’s Macron visited Trump with the aim of persuading the US president to rethink his stances on Ukraine and trade. Despite cordial tones, the exchange did little to change Trump’s mind on US involvement in the Ukraine-Russia war or his unwavering goal of balancing out the US goods trade deficit with the EU.
Italy's trade surplus with the US, amounting to over €42.1 billion, coupled with one of the EU’s lowest defence spending as a percentage of GDP, make it an unlikely negotiator. On the latter point, Meloni said at the White House that Italy would meet NATO's 2% spending guideline soon.
Meloni now heads back to Rome, where she will meet Trump's No. 2., JD Vance. The US vice president has at times been more aggressive towards the EU than his boss. Any softening on their transatlantic allies is more likely to be a result of a recalculation of interests than conversation in a high-level meeting.
“If he backs down on tariffs, he won’t do so because Meloni asked for it," Orsina said. "But because he thinks he has an advantage doing so.”
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