“Meloni? She begged me for a photo; I felt sorry for her.” Donald Trump said that to the Italian broadcaster La7, and within hours Italy’s foreign minister had scrapped a trip to Washington.
The President was talking about the 52nd G7 summit in Evian, France. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister, answered with a self-recorded video on X. “I am shocked by Trump’s utterly fabricated words,” she said. “I am frankly appalled. I don’t know why the President of the United States behaves this way with his own allies. After all, it is not the first time this has happened.”
She also took a swipe at his foreign policy. It is “a shame,” Meloni said, that he lacks the same determination “with the enemies of the West, with the enemies of the United States,” toward whom he is “much more accommodating.” Her last line was blunt: “Italy and I never beg.”
Tajani pulls out of Washington
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani cancelled a visit to the United States planned for June 21 and 22. He announced it on X. “The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy,” he wrote. Criticism of Trump’s remarks came from across the Italian political spectrum.
Trump doubles down
On Saturday Trump returned to the subject in a Truth Social post. He wrote that Meloni had asked “over and over” for a picture with him at the G7 meeting in France, and he linked it to her standing at home. She is “doing poorly in Italy” in the polls, he said, possibly because she refused to back the United States over stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. He added that NATO had done the same.
Italy would not let American forces use its landing strips or runways, Trump complained, calling that a great logistical inconvenience. He said the U.S. pays hundreds of billions of dollars a year to protect Italy and other “so-called” NATO allies. Now that the United States had defeated Iran militarily, he wrote, Meloni wanted to be friends again to get her “numbers up.” His answer: “No thanks!!!”
Open magazine described the exchange as one of the most significant public disagreements between Washington and Rome in recent years.
Sources
- Trump-Meloni Feud Escalates as US President Repeats G7 Photo Claim
- Giorgia Meloni Slams Donald Trump Over ‘Begged for Photo’ Remark, Diplomatic Rift Deepens
