US Vice President JD Vance landed in Rome on Friday for a closed-door meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, focused on Ukraine and Russia negotiations and tariff.
Vance’s visit, which also includes a meeting with the pope’s right-hand man, comes a day after Meloni met President Donald Trump and his number two in Washington in a quick trip to lock in a favourable tariffs deal.
The stakes are high for Italy. As the world’s fourth-largest exporter, and with around 10% of its goods headed to the US, Rome has plenty to lose if the transatlantic trade war flares up.
Vance, back in Europe for the first time since his firebrand speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, struck a more measured tone this time around.
In Munich, he lambasted EU members on culture war issues while calling for the bloc to “step up” in managing its own security.
But Vance tweeted after his visit Friday that he had a “great meeting” with Italy’s premier, a far-right leader who shares many of his conservative views.
“I’m grateful every day for this job, but particularly today where my official duties have brought me to Rome on Good Friday,” said Vance, a Catholic convert.
In brief comments to the press ahead of his meeting, Vance said he would update Meloni on negotiations with the EU over trade.
He would also brief her on negotiations involving Ukraine and Russia, and “some of the things that have happened even in the past 24 hours,” he said.
“I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war, this very brutal war, to a close,” he said.
That optimism wasn’t shared in Paris. Just hours earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in the city, said the United States was prepared to “move on” were it to decide peace was not “doable in the short term.”
Today, Vance is scheduled to speak with Cardinal Pietro Parolin, who as the Vatican’s secretary of state is the second-highest official at the Holy See after Pope Francis.
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