We are about to see how significant a politician Giorgia Meloni really is after she arrived in Washington yesterday evening for bilateral talks today with Donald Trump. Tariffs will be top of the agenda but they are also expected to talk about Ukraine. She then flies immediately back to Rome to meet Vice President J.D. Vance – a Catholic – on Friday, who is in Rome for Easter hoping to meet the Pope as well.
Certainly, Meloni is the one leader of a major EU country Trump enjoys seeing
Italy’s first female prime minister travels to Washington bearing the cross of the EU on her small but sturdy shoulders. For she is going not on behalf of Italy but on behalf, albeit unofficially, of the EU. This is ironic considering her past record as a Eurosceptic in common with so many on the so-called ‘far right’. But she is Trump’s favourite EU leader.
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