Politico: Meloni's Visit To The US Could Affect Trump's Position On Ukraine

The US President attaches great importance to personal relationships in diplomacy.

Top European officials are antsy about Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveling to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump Thursday with trade talks on a razor’s edge.

Politico writes about this.

“Despite the warnings, Brussels acknowledges that Meloni could be a key mediator in easing transatlantic tensions. At the same time, European leaders hope that she will be able to persuade Trump to avoid escalating the trade conflict, in particular new tariffs, and influence his vision for resolving the war between Russia and Ukraine,” the article says.

According to the publication, Meloni, a leader with ties to Italy’s far-right who’s tacked to the center in working closely with European Union partners, is uniquely positioned to engage with Trump productively on behalf of her own country and Europe more broadly, experts say. Her EU colleagues hope she’ll be able to nudge Trump toward a trade deal to avoid more tit-for-tat tariffs and to influence his approach to resolving the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“There’s a lot of nervousness in Brussels and other European capitals about what Meloni is trying to do,” said Jeremy Shapiro, a State Department official. “But they’re desperate enough, they’re not trying to stop her.”

Trump, who invited Meloni to his inauguration and praised her as “a wonderful person,” has long put personal relationships at the center of his diplomacy. Although aides are ready to discuss a range of issues, the president sees the meeting itself as validation of his claim that his tariffs have driven other leaders to come to him, said one White House official granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

That, of course, is what European officials worry about: the optics of a European leader traveling to see Trump only a week after he declared, as he hit pause on his broader tariff regime, that “countries are calling us up, kissing my ass.”

Meloni’s kinship with Trump world has also bred mistrust from European allies who believe she may deliver a message that deviates in significant ways from what other leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would convey.

“She’s seen as a transatlanticist, but also has a shared world view, especially on the domestic front, as Trump and his team,” said Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. “They get along, she and Elon Musk get along. I think that means she can speak a Trumpian sort of language that many other European leaders simply can’t.”

There is also frustration in the EU that Meloni is acting on her own while other European leaders have failed to agree on their own meetings with Trump. According to one European official, there is a risk that such a diplomatic approach could unbalance the EU's internal unity.

In particular, the EU fears that any individual concessions by Italy, for example on tariffs, could reduce the EU's overall leverage in negotiations with the US. At the same time, Meloni's office confirmed that she had consulted with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to coordinate her position ahead of the visit.

And while Meloni has aligned more closely with the rest of Europe in defense of Ukraine than many expected, the war’s impact on Italy’s economy — and her own domestic politics — have some in Brussels wondering how long her support for Ukraine will hold.

“She’s been a brilliant balancer of competing pressures and has not alienated anybody, so there’s some lease that she has,” said Shapiro. “And she’s been a lot tougher on Russia than people thought she would be. But given the Italian politics, there are some fears that she may quietly tell Trump they won’t oppose him if he relieves sanctions on Russia; and if that happens, the European sanctions front basically deteriorates.”

European leaders have had little success in dissuading Trump from engaging directly with Russia or in influencing his desire to end the war as soon as possible. If Meloni pushes Trump on the war, she’ll likely do it after the cameras have left the Oval.

That would allow Trump to demonstrate publicly that, for all his and Vice President JD Vance’s Europe-bashing, he maintains warm relations with a number of leaders.

“The president does not view the EU as an integral player in the negotiations,” said a White House official on condition of anonymity.

“He views the EU as ripping off the United States. However, he has maintained positive and close relationships with the leaders of these individual countries. He doesn’t lump them all together, and he has a strong interpersonal relationship with Meloni.”

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