Donald Trump to fulfill Italy’s Meloni amid EU commerce tensions – newest

Might Meloni be Europe’s Trump card?revealed at 14:03 British Summer season Time

14:03 BST

Laura Gozzi
Europe reporter

Picture supply, Reuters

At this fraught second, Giorgia Meloni is maybe one of many best-placed present European leaders to talk to Trump.

European Fee chief Ursula von der Leyen recognises that and so they have been talking repeatedly forward of the journey.

Trump and Meloni famously take pleasure in a very good relationship and have lavished reward on each other previously. He has known as her a “incredible girl” who has “actually taken Europe by storm”.

For her half, Meloni – who has headed a right-wing coalition authorities since 2022 – is ideologically nearer to Trump than to a few of her European neighbours.

In a video message to a US conservative convention in February, she echoed a few of Trump’s widespread speaking factors, railing towards mass migration, “globalist elites” and “woke ideology”.

She was additionally the one European chief to attend the US president’s inauguration in January, and has steered away from overtly criticising the work of his administration since.

The harshest criticism she has allotted was earlier this month, when she stated Trump’s choice to impose 20% tariffs on the EU was “completely improper” and would find yourself damaging the EU “as a lot because the US”.