For years, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy enjoyed leverage as the right-wing leader who could bridge the gap between Europe and President Trump.<\/p>\n
This week, though, she seems to have decided that Mr. Trump is a bridge too far.<\/p>\n
After suffering major political setbacks because of her association with Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Italy and seen as the cause of rising gas prices, Ms. Meloni seized on an opportunity to extricate herself from a relationship that had grown domestically and internationally poisonous. After Mr. Trump launched a broadside on Monday against Pope Leo XIV, Ms. Meloni rallied to the American pontiff\u2019s defense, saying, \u201cI find President Trump\u2019s remarks about the Holy Father unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump, clearly jilted, lashed out at Ms. Meloni, saying in an interview<\/a> with an Italian newspaper on Tuesday that he hadn\u2019t talked to her \u201cin a long time,\u201d was vexed by her lack of participation in the war in Iran and was \u201cshocked by her,\u201d adding, \u201cI thought she was brave, but I was wrong.\u201d He responded to her \u201cunacceptable\u201d criticism by snapping, \u201cShe\u2019s the one who\u2019s unacceptable.\u201d On Wednesday, he added<\/a> in a television interview that with Italy, \u201cwe do not have the same relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n The spat seemed to be the end of, or at least a low point for, perhaps Mr. Trump\u2019s most special relationship in Europe.<\/p>\n It is also another remarkable moment in the career of Ms. Meloni, who has over decades shifted from teenage neofascist activist to hard-right party leader \u2014 before finally emerging as a pragmatic conservative and the first female prime minister of Italy.<\/p>\n When Mr. Trump returned to power last year, many in the European establishment feared that he would pull her to the far-right extremes. Instead, analysts suggest, Mr. Trump may have actually pushed her deeper into the Europe mainstream.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the relationship with Trump, she originally thought he could be an asset, and maybe he was, because she could appear as the person that could mediate between the rest of Europe and Trump,\u201d said Roberto D\u2019Alimonte, a professor of political science at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome. \u201cBut gradually it has become a liability. I think she took advantage of what he said about the pope to make a firm statement and take distance. She couldn\u2019t do otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n At first, Ms. Meloni\u2019s connection to Mr. Trump had the makings of a beautiful friendship.<\/p>\n In 2018, when she was still a marginal figure looking for oxygen in Italy\u2019s crowded populist space, Ms. Meloni invited Mr. Trump\u2019s former top adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, to be the guest of honor at her political conference, named after a hero in \u201cThe NeverEnding Story.\u201d<\/a> The next year, she proudly called herself \u201cthe only Italian\u201d invited to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. She spoke on the same day as Mr. Trump, and from her seat in the audience gushed about his remarks on social media even as he delivered them.<\/p>\n In 2022, she said<\/a> in an interview<\/a> with The New York Times: \u201cTrump did some very good things when he was president. For example, in foreign policy, we had no problems. There were no wars.\u201d<\/p>\n Years later, when they were both at the height of their power, they seemed to be hitting it off.<\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t mind being called beautiful, right?\u201d Mr. Trump said to Ms. Meloni at a summit in Egypt last October. \u201cYou are.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the public displays of affection, throughout his second term, Mr. Trump has increasingly put pressure on Ms. Meloni, along with other European allies, to increase Italy\u2019s military spending and to accept unfavorable trade terms.<\/p>\n She showed signs of resistance. Last April, as Mr. Trump threatened to raise tariffs, she said<\/a>, \u201cI think the choice of the United States is a wrong choice,\u201d even as she cautioned against retaliatory tariffs from Europe.<\/p>\n Then things started getting tense. In January, as Mr. Trump increasingly began to float the idea of taking Greenland, she said<\/a>, \u201cI don\u2019t believe in the idea of the U.S. launching military action on Greenland, which I would not agree with.\u201d Days later, when Mr. Trump walked back his threats, she spoke as someone who understood him, saying she was \u201cnot surprised, to be honest.\u201d<\/p>\n But when Mr. Trump decided to attack Iran, he did not give Ms. Meloni a heads-up. To her humiliation, her defense minister was vacationing in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, at the time and had to be evacuated via military jet.<\/p>\n The war also led to a spike in gas and electricity prices in Italy. Ms. Meloni, a populist with a sharp sense of pocketbook issues, understood the political danger, especially as Italians prepared to vote in a referendum on a crucial judicial change<\/a> that she supported.<\/p>\n As poll after poll showed that Italy did not support the war and did not like Mr. Trump, Ms. Meloni started speaking out<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI am concerned, obviously, because it would be stupid to believe that what happens even far from our borders does not involve us,\u201d she said<\/a> on March 2, adding, \u201cThe United States and Israel decided to attack without the involvement of their European partners.\u201d<\/p>\n Days later, she made it clear that \u201cwe are not at war and we do not want to go to war.\u201d She dispatched Guido Crosetto, the defense minister who had been marooned in Dubai, to be even more forceful, saying the attack by the United States and Israel \u201ccertainly happened outside the rules of international law.\u201d She then added in a speech to Parliament that because the United States had problems communicating, she couldn\u2019t necessarily endorse the American assessment that Iranian intransigence had thwarted negotiations over a deal.<\/p>\n Ms. Meloni has also sought daylight with Israel, previously a key ally. This week, she announced that Italy would not automatically renew its defense agreement with Israel<\/a> \u201cin view of the current situation.\u201d<\/p>\n For all her effort to distance herself from Mr. Trump\u2019s war, she badly lost the referendum on the judiciary anyway, after the vote became perceived as a plebiscite on her own popularity. In an effort to settle scores with those she believed had done her wrong, she fired a minister and aides whom she held responsible for the defeat.<\/p>\n But analysts said that a rupture with Mr. Trump was the breakup that would matter most to Italian voters. And Mr. Trump\u2019s attack on the pope gave her an opening.<\/p>\n Now, experts say, Ms. Meloni will have to decide if she wants to go it alone, or seek closer alliances in the European establishment that she rose to power bashing.<\/p>\n