Family photos are often awkward. The one lined up at this week’s NATO summit in Ankara will be doubly so if Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni end up standing near each other.
Their rolling spat—over whether Meloni “begged” Trump for a photo at June’s G7 summit in France, as he put it (certainly not, she says)—was reignited by a new Truth Social meme mocking her.
In it, a doe-eyed Meloni gazes up at Trump, beneath them the caption “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”
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Here are two nationalist leaders—political allies in and through that nationalism—locked in a petty war of pride and credibility. Their feud reveals the deeper flaw in Trump’s brotherhood of nationalists.
The Brotherhood Is a Chain of Rival Flags
Trump has sought to cohere a loose orbit of leaders, parties, conferences and media figures into a larger patriotic, sovereignist movement—one hostile to liberal internationalism and multilateral institutions, and one that is capable of winning seats in power.
His own National Security Strategy encouraged America’s European political allies to promote “unapologetic celebrations” of national character, welcomed the growing influence of “patriotic European parties,” and called for Europe to operate as a group of “aligned sovereign nations.”
Meloni, the Italian prime minister and leader of the Brothers of Italy party, is one of the more successful—and perhaps more moderate—members of this group. But there are many more within this Trumpian brotherhood, and not only in Europe.
Poland’s Karol Nawrocki. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Argentina’s Javier Milei. Spain’s Santiago Abascal. Germany’s Alice Weidel. France’s Marine Le Pen. Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella. The Netherlands’ Geert Wilders. Some are in office, some are seeking it, and some prod and poke at their societies from outside.
This is the Trump international, and it is powerful as theater because it makes every domestic fight look connected to a worldwide movement to elevate national populations above the interests of a globalized elite.
But it is fragile as politics because each member owes the home audience the same promise: Nobody abroad gets to tell us what to do. The peace shatters when two nationalists collide.
Nationalist Solidarity’s Self-Destruct Button
Trump’s foreign policy language invites this kind of collision with his allies.
His administration’s security strategy says the U.S. should help Europe “correct its current trajectory,” cultivate resistance inside European nations and build up Central, Eastern and Southern Europe through commercial ties, weapons sales and political collaboration.
The strategy gives Trump’s allies a flattering role. In its rendering, they are the authentic Europe, waiting to be rescued from the tyrannies of Brussels, migration, and technocracy.
Meloni once looked like the picture-perfect partner for that project. Tough, sincere, photogenic, a winner. She ticked a lot of boxes as the sister leading the brothers.
The White House and Rome described Trump and Meloni’s April 2025 meeting as a reaffirmation of the U.S.-Italy strategic alliance across security, economic and technological issues.
The same statement said the U.S. and Italy would work to make U.S.-Europe trade mutually beneficial, fair and reciprocal—a nod to Trump’s priorities, and a sign that Meloni was willing to give them a fair hearing.
On paper, this is the relationship Trump wants, one that is conservative, border-conscious, deeply skeptical of European centralization, and friendly to Washington.
The trouble is that a leader elected to defend national status cannot afford to look managed by another country’s president—or to place his priorities on a par with her own for the sake of compromise.
And when a leader becomes synonymous with national pride, how she is treated abroad is diplomatic tinder. Trump’s belittling of Meloni, and by extension Italy, was the spark.
He told the Italian broadcaster La7 that she had “begged” him for a photograph at the G7, a claim she called fabricated.
Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, canceled a planned U.S. trip and said Trump’s words were offensive to Italy.
That is exactly how nationalist diplomacy blows up.
Policy disputes can be negotiated quietly; public humiliation has to be answered publicly. And small fires become infernos when both sides keep throwing fuel on them.
Meloni’s Brothers Answer to Italy First
Meloni’s party, in its European manifesto, says Fratelli d’Italia wants to defend the identity of Europe’s peoples and nations while building a confederal Europe of sovereign states rather than a centralized “Super-Stato europeo.”
It says, too, that Meloni’s government showed Italy could “count” more in Europe by opposing rules contrary to the national interest.
These are sentiments that will echo pleasantly around the current White House. But there is an underlying discordance.
Meloni can cooperate with Trump on migration, defense spending and the EU.
What she cannot do is accept the appearance of a patron-client relationship with Washington, or swallow personal insults that transmute into national ones.
YouGov found in April that only 7 percent of Italians had a favorable view of Trump, while 86 percent had an unfavorable one.
Euronews reported in June that Meloni’s party still led its main rivals, even as her relationship with Trump deteriorated after disputes over Iran, Sicily and Pope Leo XIV.
Still, Trump lashed out about her alleged unpopularity.
“[Meloni] is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!),” Trump wrote in a June 20 post on Truth Social.
“She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience, and this despite the fact the U.S. contributes hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year to protect Italy, and other ‘so-called’ NATO Allies.
“Now, after the United States defeated Iran militarily, she wants to be friends again in order to get her ‘numbers up.’ No thanks!!!”
Meloni’s sharp response followed the logic of her brand.
“President Trump, these constant, unprovoked attacks are senseless,” Meloni said in a post on social media.
“As for my popularity, being your friend certainly has not helped it, nor does it depend on my relationship with you. My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interest, and that is exactly what I have always done.”
She added: “Italy remains a sovereign nation. In any case, my popularity is none of your concern. I suggest you focus on yours.”
A day earlier, responding to Trump’s claim that she begged for a photo, Meloni had said: “Neither I nor Italy ever beg.”
The line was aimed at Trump, but its real audience was Italian. A nationalist leader has to show the home crowd that friendship with Washington ends where national dignity begins. Italy begins with I.
Compromise or Taking Orders
Trump’s big strength is the cold, hard fact that allies have often leaned too heavily on U.S. power—and still do. NATO is probably the best example.
At Ankara, European allies and Canada will stress that they are committed to increasing their defense spending and taking on more of the burden for their own security.
In return, the U.S. is expected to reaffirm its enduring commitment to collective defense under NATO’s Article 5.
Trump’s pressure has forced European governments to spend more on defense, and Meloni has tried to sit in the politically useful middle: friendly to Trump, firm on borders, critical of EU centralization and still anchored in NATO.
The catch is that nationalist burden-sharing works only when each leader can sell it at home as an act of sovereignty, made in the national interest.
Italy tested that limit in March, when Rome declined to let U.S. aircraft bound for the Middle East use the Sigonella air base in Sicily without parliamentary approval—a decision rooted in Italy’s constitution and in public opposition to the war with Iran.
Trump’s complaints then moved beyond the arithmetic of NATO burden-sharing. He attacked Meloni over Iran and suggested her political standing was weak, as seen in his Truth Social post above.
Once the quarrel became a question of whether Italy takes orders from Trump, compromise got much harder.
Trump may want Europe’s nationalists to weaken Brussels. But those same nationalists have to prove they are not weakening themselves for Washington.
Trump’s Embrace Couldn’t Save Orbán
Viktor Orbán, swept from power in Hungary’s April parliamentary election, shows the risk at the far end of this bargain.
Péter Magyar’s Tisza party defeated Orbán’s Fidesz and won a two-thirds majority in parliament, ending his 16 years in office.
Trump threw his full weight behind Orbán. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary to campaign for him, Trump publicly dangled American economic support if Fidesz won, and Donald Trump Jr. urged Hungarian voters to back his father’s friend and ally.
Of course, Orbán’s defeat had many causes, and domestic issues were the most significant among them.
A weak economy, underfunded health care and education, corruption allegations, and fatigue with a leader who had served 16 years all weighed heavily.
An ECFR poll found 77 percent of Hungarian voters supported EU membership despite Orbán’s years of attacks on Brussels.
Trump did not sink Orbán, who fell instead to domestic exhaustion.
But Trump’s enthusiastic embrace still failed to save the brotherhood’s star pupil—and it handed opponents a simple line of attack.
Orbán was a nationalist who looked far better connected abroad than he was useful at home.
Meloni appears to understand the danger. Her answer to Trump was a performance of independence, and in nationalist politics, performance is a big part of the job.
Feud Exposes the Weakness
The Ankara family photo will still be taken, smiles all around. NATO’s communiqués will still be signed, as they always are, even in turbulent times.
Trump and Meloni may yet find more common ground on migration, defense and the EU that moves them past the current falling-out.
If the summit delivers a genuine reset—and Rome quietly restores the kind of cooperation it withheld over Iran—the brotherhood’s contradiction will look more manageable than it does today.
But the feud has exposed the weakness inside Trump’s preferred international coalition.
He wants allies who speak the language of sovereignty, then bristles when they speak it back to him—even when he insulted them first.
Trump’s brotherhood was always going to betray him because every member joined it for the same reason.
Each came to defend a nation, and every nation eventually asks to be defended from its friends.
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