Italy won't respond to Trump's provocations anymore, says foreign minister ahead of NATO summit
Italy will no longer respond to US President Donald Trump's provocative remarks, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in an interview on Tuesday, according to Reuters
Italy will no longer respond to US President Donald Trump's provocative remarks, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said in an interview on Tuesday, according to Reuters, as NATO leaders prepared to meet in Turkey. The comments come after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni last month accused Trump of fabricating a story about her, Reuters reported, after the US president told an Italian TV channel that she had “begged” him to take a photo with her at the G7 summit in France. Trump Reignites Dispute Ahead of NATO Summit With both leaders due to attend the NATO summit in Ankara on Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump appeared to revive the row when he posted a picture on Truth Social of Meloni looking up at him, captioned “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED”.
Responding to the post, Tajani told Italian newspaper La Stampa, as cited by Reuters, that Trump “speaks for himself,” adding that the US president “loves to provoke, especially on social media.” He said Italy had "decided to stop responding to these remarks so as not to fuel disputes among our allies." Tajani further said that Italy remains and will continue to be a friend of the United States, serving as a strategic partner for both Italy and Europe. Meloni was once among Trump's most vocal European supporters and was the only European leader to attend his 2025 inauguration.
However, she criticised him this year after he lashed out at Pope Leo over the pontiff's condemnation of the Iran conflict, a rebuke that in turn prompted Trump to accuse her of lacking courage, per the report. Meloni has long occupied an unusual position among European leaders, cultivating a personal rapport with Trump even as she has sought to remain aligned with the European Union's broader positions on trade, Ukraine and multilateral diplomacy. Her attempts to balance this relationship have periodically drawn scrutiny at home, particularly when Trump's remarks have appeared to test the limits of that closeness, as they did with his comments on the G7 photograph and his more recent social media post.
Reuters also noted that Italy's Il Foglio newspaper mocked Trump's jibe on its Tuesday front page, publishing a picture of the US president with Russian President Vladimir Putin under the same caption, “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”
The BriefWire