Meloni gets Trump’s OK to possible meeting with Europe. No news on tariffs

Brussels — Maintaining the European line while simultaneously embracing the thinking of the White House. In the most delicate balancing act, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni returns from Washington bolstered by Donald Trump’s praise in the Oval Office, with a ‘yes’ from the tycoon to a visit to Rome for a possible ‘meeting with Europe.’ However, this comes at the cost of appearing fully aligned with the American president’s fanaticism on woke ideology and immigration and of shrinking into the background when it comes to the hottest issue: trade tariffs.

It could have been better, but also much worse. After Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, Meloni is the third leader from the old continent to be received by Trump — but the first after Washington’s rupture on tariffs. Overall, she succeeded more than the others in playing that bridge-building role she claimed for months, thanks to her unquestionable political affinity with Trump, who praised her by saying that “she is doing a fantastic job” and that “she has won Europe over.” In an exchange of pleasantries, Meloni borrowed the Trumpian slogan by repurposing it to “Make the West Great Again” and did not force her hand on the issue of tariffs, merely showing optimism that the two sides of the Atlantic would soon find an agreement.

Possibly in Rome, on the occasion of a trip by the US president that, according to Meloni, could take place “in the near future” and that – depending on Trump’s moods – could include other European leaders as well. In fact, in the now customary ‘one-man show’ before reporters in the Oval Office, Trump stressed that “tariffs are making us rich” and that on tariffs he would not change his mind, confident that “we will not have great problems reaching an agreement with Europe or anyone else, because we have something that everyone wants.”

There was not much more in terms of substance. Besides, as Brussels has repeatedly said, the European Commission negotiates customs barriers. There is no room for breakaways, which would be a real stab in the back for the other chancelleries of the old continent. Although Meloni did give a small rupture, suggesting that “we should buy more gas from the United States.” An issue that Trump wants to put on the negotiating table and that Brussels would rather keep separate instead.

The talk about military spending, a national competence, on which Trump teases Meloni and Italy, one of the eight countries of the Atlantic Alliance still below 2 percent of GDP, is different. “We haven’t talked about upper limits to which Italy can go, but about whether our country will keep its commitments. At the  Hague (NATO, ed) summit at the end of June, we will reach 2 percent. We are a serious nation,” the premier reassured. On the other hand, on Ukraine, while Trump reiterated that he was “not a fan” of Zelensky, Meloni did not deviate from the European line and said, “I think there was an invasion and that the invader was Putin. But today, what is important is that we want to work together to achieve a just and lasting peace.”

While Meloni can celebrate having managed to keep open a high-level dialogue with the United States, the balance of the first meeting with a European leader after the (now frozen) tariff escalation is also favorable for Trump. Although the US ally has bullied the entire EU, the Italian premier has been compliant on everything: on buying gas from the United States, on the possibility of revising taxes on US digital giants, on more direct investment in the US.

To what extent Brussels agreed with this soft line is unknown. The European Commission said that Ursula von der Leyen had been in close contact with Meloni in the days leading up to the visit. According to what an EU spokesperson reported this morning, the two leaders will have a new telephone conversation today to take stock of the meeting.