On July 6, shortly before a NATO summit in Turkey, President Donald Trump once again insulted Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on social media, reigniting tensions between the two.
On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump posted an image of Meloni facing him, slapped with the caption, “RESTRAINING ORDER NEEDED.”
This came a month after Meloni accused Trump of fabricating a claim he made on Italian television that she had “begged” him for a photo during the G7 summit in France.
“I did not have any reaction [to the post], the fundamental thing is to maintain relations with a key ally like the USA,” Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told Italy’s Sky TV.
“We are convinced that transatlantic relations go far beyond individual statements,” he added. “People come and go but relationships remain.”
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Meloni — who is up for reelection in 2027 — was one of Trump’s closest supporters. In recent months, however, she seems to be moving away from the U.S. President.
Last year, Meloni criticised Trump for his cruel words towards American-born Pope Leo, who had called out the President for his war on Iran.
Trump has also criticized Meloni for refusing to support his war effort by denying U.S. forces permission to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily as a staging location.
“She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon,” Trump shared on Truth Social.
“She refused to get involved so it soured my relationship with her a little bit,” he later told reporters during the Turkey summit. “But I like her. I think she’s a nice person, actually. But I think she made a mistake.”
The Italian government refuses to respond to Trump’s threats on Truth Social, in an attempt to avoid hostilities.
“Trump speaks for himself,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told the La Stampa newspaper on Tuesday. “We have a U.S. president who loves to provoke, especially on social media. We have decided to stop responding to these remarks.”
The NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, was held for member nations to discuss commitments to improving defensive capabilities in Europe. European leaders aimed to prove their pledge to spend five percent of gross domestic product on “defense and defense-related measures by 2035,” according to Reuters.
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Meloni still hopeful
According to recent polls, most of the Italian populace have negative feelings towards Trump following the war in Iran.
“Trump is a despicable, cheap bully,” Carlo Calenda, leader of the minor Azione party, wrote on X.
However, Meloni herself expressed she has no regrets on her attempts to woo Trump, even after the drama online, Reuters reported.
When asked if she had second thoughts on Trump during her trip to the NATO summit, Meloni replied, “No, I absolutely don’t regret anything I’ve done.
“I made that political investment [in Trump] 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 added.
On July 9, the United States launched a new round of military strikes against Iran, risking a dangerous escalation of hostilities. In response, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has firmly insisted that Italy will not participate in the conflict, according to the defense news outlet Breaking Defense.
“For the bases, it’s not as though we’ve been changing course from one day to the next — we’ve had a very clear line since the beginning of the conflict in Iran, and we are maintaining that,” Meloni told reporters during the last night of the summit. “We are not participating in attacks against Iran, and we will not participate in attacks against Iran.”
