President Donald Trump softened his tone toward Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the NATO summit in Ankara, calling her “a nice person” after weeks of public tension between two leaders once seen as close ideological allies.
The image appeared to show Meloni looking toward him during a previous public event. Trump did not provide additional context beyond the caption to the post, which followed weeks of strained exchanges between the two leaders.
“No, I absolutely don’t regret anything I’ve done,” Meloni said in Ankara, at the end of a NATO summit on July 8.
“I made that political investment because I believe in the unity of the West. It’s not a strategy I adopted with Trump’s arrival, but one I have pursued with all my counterparts,” she said.
Meloni acknowledged that “things are going the way we have seen” between her and Trump, and that they still shared common ground on issues including immigration and opposition to what she described as “woke culture.”
At the NATO summit, Trump described Meloni as “a nice person.”
However, Trump said his relationship with Meloni “became a little bad because she refused to help us” with Iran.
“She refused to get involved so it soured my relationship with her a little bit. But I like her. I think she’s a nice person, actually. But I think she made a mistake,” Trump told reporters in Turkey.
In a brief phone interview broadcast by Italian TV La7 on June 19, Trump said that he met the Italian leader at the G7. When asked about the meeting, he said: “I don’t know what to say! She begged me for a picture! She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her!”
In a June 19 post on X, Tajani said that the “serious and offensive words” of Trump toward Meloni “offend all of Italy.”
“For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for the next 21 and 22 June,” he said.
Meloni said she was “astonished” by his comments, which she said were “completely made up.”
In a video from the G7 event in France, Meloni and Trump were filmed deep in conversation.
“Probably she is happy that I talked to her! I didn’t have to talk to her!” Trump said, according to Italian television network La7.
“Donald Trump’s statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies: it is not the first time, moreover,” Meloni said in Italian in a video posted on X on June 19. “I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence.”
“There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg,” she added.
Meloni is one of Trump’s closest allies in Europe.
Teresa Coratella, deputy head of the Rome office at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said in February 2025 that Meloni and Trump are ideologically aligned.
“There is also an ideological similarity, especially on civil rights issues, and their shared view of the traditional family ideal,” she said. “They are both very conservative and on this topic, Meloni aligns more closely with Trump than other European leaders.”
