US president escalates feud with Italian leader who was previously his most devoted European ally. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found on the Help FAQ on gift articles.
\nhttps:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/558dfb9e-5541-48b6-bc86-1e1ca0d31c1d?syn-25a6b1a6=1<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump escalated a feud with erstwhile ally Giorgia Meloni, posting an image of her captioned \u201crestraining order needed\u201d ahead of a Nato summit where they will meet for the first time since their bitter war of words.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found on the Help FAQ on gift articles.
\nhttps:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/558dfb9e-5541-48b6-bc86-1e1ca0d31c1d?syn-25a6b1a6=1<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s latest dig at the Italian prime minister\u00a0\u2014 with whom he had forged a warm bond before their recent dramatic fallout \u2014 came via Truth Social, as he posted an image of himself with Meloni smiling and gazing up at him, seemingly enchanted. The social media meme \u2014 suggesting Trump needed legal protection from a predatory Meloni \u2014 is an oblique reference to his claim that Meloni had \u201cbegged him\u201d for a photo opportunity at last month\u2019s G7 summit in France to boost her flagging popularity. Meloni strenuously denied Trump\u2019s claim of \u201cbegging\u201d for a photo in a video counterattack, accusing the president of pandering to the enemies of the west. In a subsequent round of social media salvos, they attacked each other about their respective popularity among domestic voters. Meloni has not responded to Trump\u2019s latest post and her office declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Defence minister Guido Crosetto told national television on Monday that Italy was determined to \u201cmaintain stable relations with the United States. People come and go, but relationships endure.\u201d Trump\u2019s fresh insult to Meloni highlights his continuing resentment towards her and other Nato allies over their reluctance to allow US military bases in Europe to be used for the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. It also bodes poorly for this week\u2019s Nato summit in Ankara, which takes place amid fears of the prospects for a chaotic US drawdown of forces from Europe. \u201cIt shows once again the unpredictability of Trump and how much personal feelings and perceptions shape US foreign and defence policy in this administration,\u201d said Alessandro Marrone, head of the defence and security programme at Rome\u2019s Institute for International Affairs. Ahead of the summit, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte has tried to make the economic case for Trump to remain engaged in the military alliance, emphasising that Europe\u2019s rearmament drive is spurring US jobs and growth. In a separate interview with Fox News last month, Rutte also tried to counter Trump\u2019s claim that Italy had not supported strikes on Iran. He said planes had flown more than 500 sorties from US bases in Italy in support of the operation.<\/p>\n
Rutte\u2019s claim sparked a domestic political furore in Italy \u2014 where both Trump and the US bombing of Iran are highly unpopular \u2014 and Rome disputed Rutte\u2019s account of the nature of the flights, insisting they only offered routine logistical support as required by their bilateral treaties governing use of the bases. Italy remains one of Europe\u2019s defence spending laggards. Meloni\u2019s government has balked at utilising its \u20ac14.9bn allocation of low-cost EU loans to increase its security spending, ahead of a general election year in which borrowing more to spend on defence would be highly controversial.\u00a0 Meloni\u2019s reluctance to step up defence funding has caused friction with Crosetto, who has warned about the need to recognise the changing international scenario. He has also denied that Italy faces any trade-off between military spending and social services.<\/p>\n
Recommended News in-depthItalian politics Why Giorgia Meloni turned on Donald Trump Speaking at a public forum Sunday, before Trump\u2019s latest salvo against Meloni, Crosetto downplayed the recent war of words between Italy\u2019s leader and the US president. \u201cTrump has his own way of doing politics \u2014 of pressuring his allies,\u201d the defence minister said. \u201cIt\u2019s a way of getting his allies to react.\u201d Since last month\u2019s fight between Trump and Meloni, billionaire businessman Tilman Fertitta, a friend of Trump and the US ambassador to Italy, and the Italian government have sought to restore calm.\u00a0 Fertitta has insisted that Italian and US relations remain \u201cexcellent\u201d, portraying the spat as a mere \u201cdisagreement\u201d among friends. Meloni has made clear to her staff that she did not want the fight to sour the relationship with Rome\u2019s most important ally. Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US president escalates feud with Italian leader who was previously his most devoted European ally. Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,21,22,1,5,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aita","category-daily-article","category-reddit-stories","category-story","category-story-daily","category-viral-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4032,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4031\/revisions\/4032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nextstoryus.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}