Meloni seeks to break tariff impasse with 'soulmate' Trump

Italian PM will try to coax him about merits of transatlantic cooperation on US visit

- Jonathan Eyal

LONDON - Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has become the first European leader to visit the US since President Donald Trump announced a tariff war on global trade.

Ms Meloni considers herself a Trump soulmate; both leaders belong to the far-right strand of politics.

President Trump is equally admiring. In the past, he referred to the Italian leader as a "fantastic woman" who had "really taken Europe by storm".

However, that did not prevent Mr Trump from imposing the same punitive tariffs on Italy that he has on the rest of the European Union.

Ms Meloni now grudgingly admits that her initial plan of acting as a Trump-friendly mediator and problem-solver between the US and the rest of Europe has grown increasingly tricky.

"We know this is a difficult time," Ms Meloni told journalists on April 17, as she boarded a plane for her trip to Washington.

The 48-year-old is regarded as one of Europe's most astute politicians. She has successfully presented herself as both a hard-right nationalist at home and a pragmatist on the global stage.

When she came to power in 2022, she was viewed with distaste.

The first woman to lead a notoriously male-dominated Italy, she was contemptuously referred to as the "ragazza" (girl) from Garbatella, a working-class and unattractive district in southern Rome, where she grew up.

At the European level, she was treated as a pariah, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, a movement considered a menace by Europe's political establishment.

Early on, there was even discussion in Europe about refusing to deal with Italy's new leader.