Trump welcomes Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to White House

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Trump Welcomes a European Leader He Likes: Meloni of Italy

Giorgia Meloni visited the White House representing Italy and the rest of Europe, which are seeking more lasting tariff relief.

President Trump heaped praise on Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy during her visit to the White House on Thursday.Credit...Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

By David E. Sanger

Reporting from the White House

• April 17, 2025

The Oval Office bargaining over tariffs is accelerating.

A day after a Japanese delegation met with President Trump, it was Italy’s turn, with the White House arrival on Thursday of one of the few European leaders Mr. Trump likes: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

As Mr. Trump and Vice President JD Vance made clear at a lunch for Ms. Meloni in the Cabinet Room and a session in the Oval Office, they want her conservative, more nationalistic views to become a model for the rest of Europe.

For her part, Ms. Meloni appeared adept at handling an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Trump: no demands that might lead to a blowup like President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine faced, just praise for Mr. Trump and odes to his favorite causes.

“The goal for me is to make the West great again,” she said, getting in the message that there was no room in the two leaders’ spheres for diversity programs or “woke ideology,” before pivoting to inviting Mr. Trump to Italy for an official visit.

She suggested she might use the moment to get the president to sit down with the leaders of Europe, though she acknowledged that Mr. Trump was noncommittal.

While Ms. Meloni came to Washington representing Italy, her visit was in many ways on behalf of the rest of Europe, as it seeks more lasting relief from Mr. Trump’s tariffs.

Nearly three months into the second Trump presidency, he appears in no rush to schedule a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. Mr. Trump has said several times in recent weeks he believes the European Union was created to “screw” the United States.

Yet as he greeted Ms. Meloni, Mr. Trump said that “there’ll be a trade deal, 100 percent” with the European Union before the end of the 90-day pause on some U.S. tariffs.

Mr. Trump praised Ms. Meloni, whom he has seen several times before and since his inauguration, telling reporters in the Oval Office that “she has taken Europe by storm.” But when pressed later by reporters to provide an outline of what a trade deal with Europe might look like, he was not descriptive.

While Mr. Trump has heaped compliments on Ms. Meloni, Italy is not exactly the model he has in mind for either trade or defense. It runs a $45 billion trade surplus with the United States, a testament to American hunger for luxury Italian goods, sparkling wine, fine cheeses and the 3,500 Ferraris sold in the United States each year. (If you can afford the $250,000 base price, the 25 percent Trump tariff on imported autos may not be a deterrent.)

And though NATO countries agreed a decade ago that all members would spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, Italy has yet to hit 1.5 percent.

The Japanese left the White House on Wednesday without a tariff deal, after discussing vehicles and auto parts, and the range of electronics, computers and specialty gear that flow into the United States from the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Mr. Trump, though, crowed in a social media post about “big progress.” Japanese officials said they were surprised that Mr. Trump himself entered the negotiations, but they emerged convinced that he wanted to control the conversations.

Mr. Trump measures foreign policy success not by policies set or alliances bolstered, but by deals done. So over the next three months, while some of the tariffs are suspended, he has to show that he is forcing countries to accept his terms.

To that end, Mr. Trump offered assurances on Thursday that he would reach a trade deal with China, which has pushed back hard against American tariffs. But he did not offer evidence of progress.

“I think we are going to make a very good deal with China,” Mr. Trump said. Later in the day, he said that he was in contact with Chinese officials at the “highest levels,” leaving the impression that he may have been in unannounced conversations with Xi Jinping, China’s leader.

Mr. Xi spent the week courting countries like Vietnam, one of several Southeast Asian nations he visited, in hopes of pulling them into China’s orbit. In Hanoi, he urged Vietnam to join China in opposing “unilateral bullying.” In Kuala Lumpur, he said countries should “reject decoupling, supply disruption” and “tariff abuse.”

The Chinese leader’s moves appeared part of a strategy to take advantage of the sense of alienation many nations in Asia and Europe feel toward Washington, though they all have seemed wary of Beijing.

“I don’t blame China; I don’t blame Vietnam,” Mr. Trump told reporters at the White House earlier this week, saying that he thought the two countries were “trying to figure out: ‘How do we screw the United States of America?’”

On Thursday, Mr. Trump left no doubt about his special regard for Ms. Meloni, however: The public remarks before and after the meeting brimmed with hyperbolic praise. Ms. Meloni sought to bond with Mr. Trump over their aversion to social justice programs and mass immigration, but did not — as some speculators feared — turn her back on Europe.

She stuck with her position on Ukraine and noted that Russia started the war. And she appeared to relish the chance to take on a role that might cement her position as a conduit between Europe and the United States.

It remains unclear what the special relationship between Ms. Meloni and Mr. Trump can yield for Italy, much less for Europe.

Despite Mr. Trump’s assurance that there will be a trade deal with the European Union, he noted the “billions” he said the United States was making from tariffs.

“We know this is a difficult time,” Ms. Meloni said this week, ahead of her trip. “We will do our best.”

Emma Bubola contributed reporting from Rome

David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.