Rome (AFP) – Italy’s foreign minister on Friday cancelled a visit to the United States over reported comments by US President Donald Trump that appeared to mock Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “The grave and offensive words of President Trump…offend the whole of Italy,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who had been due to visit the US on June 21 and 22, said on X.
Meloni said she was “stunned” by Trump’s comments to Italian channel La7 in which, according to a transcript provided by the network, he said Meloni “wanted a picture with me so badly” at the G7 summit and he agreed only because he “felt sorry for her”. He also suggested that Meloni might be “happy that I talked to her, I didn’t have to talk to her”.
Meloni called what Trump said “made up”, adding: “Neither I nor Italy ever beg.” “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies,” the far-right leader wrote on X. “I can only say that it’s a pity he doesn’t show the same determination with enemies of the West, with enemies of the United States, with leaders with whom, instead, he is far more accommodating,” she said.
At the end of the G7 summit in Evian on Wednesday, Meloni had spoken of a “very positive climate” and “no friction” between Trump and other world leaders present. Meloni has positioned herself as a bridge between Europe and the Trump administration, but the relationship came under strain during the Middle East war.
Trump turned on Meloni in April after she defended Pope Leo XIV from the US president’s harsh criticism of the pontiff’s anti-war views. Meloni condemned Trump’s remarks as “unacceptable” — prompting the president to turn his fire on her. “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera at the time. He accused Meloni of failing to help the United States with NATO.
Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Italy, saying Rome “has not been of any help to us” in the Iran war.
© 2024 AFP
