{"id":715486,"date":"2026-01-23T14:25:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/715486\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T14:25:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:25:06","slug":"fighting-trump-is-a-bad-idea-meloni-privately-told-eu-leaders-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/715486\/","title":{"rendered":"Fighting Trump is a bad idea, Meloni privately told EU leaders \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking after the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested the leaders had learned the lesson this week that standing up to Trump in a \u201cfirm\u201d but \u201cnon-escalatory\u201d way was an effective strategy that they should continue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>EU leaders called the emergency summit in response to Trump\u2019s threat to hit eight European countries with tariffs for objecting to his demand to seize control of Greenland from Denmark. The crisis in the transatlantic relationship has dominated discussions in Brussels and other European capitals, and leaders gathered for dinner Thursday to try to sketch out a strategy for the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-bazooka-trade-us-greenland-france-threat-nato\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-bazooka-trade-us-greenland-france-threat-nato\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the EU threatened to use trade and other methods to retaliate<\/a> if Trump went ahead with his tariff threat, and markets reacted negatively, the U.S. president backed down and indicated he wanted an amicable deal on Greenland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The reports of Meloni\u2019s intervention suggested she wanted a more cautious approach than some leaders around the table.\u00a0On Friday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-new-power-couple-alliance-europe-giorgia-meloni-friedrich-merz\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/eu-new-power-couple-alliance-europe-giorgia-meloni-friedrich-merz\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Meloni was hosting German Chancellor Friedrich Merz<\/a> in Rome to discuss greater defense and industrial cooperation.<\/p>\n<p>EU leaders resolved to meet again next month for a \u201cstrategic brainstorming\u201d session on ways to adapt to a new world order dominated by great power rivalries, with less of a role for international law.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur impression was that a large majority of leaders really identified the last weeks as a turning point, and that Europe should act quickly on several fronts to be able to defend its core interests,\u201d a fifth person briefed on the discussions said. There were \u201cno illusions that the crisis is over.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Roberts in Rome contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking after the summit, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested the leaders had learned the lesson&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":715487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[1213,6178,6215,6659,473,365,32,2000,299,5187,1945,2440,366,50872,2441,479,1201,1771,49,1220],"class_list":{"0":"post-715486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-americas","9":"tag-conflict","10":"tag-cooperation","11":"tag-crisis","12":"tag-defense","13":"tag-denmark","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-eu","16":"tag-europe","17":"tag-european","18":"tag-friedrich-merz","19":"tag-giorgia-meloni","20":"tag-greenland","21":"tag-italian-politics","22":"tag-markets","23":"tag-tariffs","24":"tag-trade","25":"tag-u-s-foreign-policy","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115944877257943337","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/715487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}