Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on November 20, 2024. in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made a shock go to to Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, assembly President-elect Donald Trump for the second time since he received the US election in November.
In the course of the assembly in Florida, Trump described Meloni as “a unbelievable girl … she actually took Europe by storm” in a briefing with reporters.
Melon, in the meantime, published on X that she had a “good night” with Trump, including that she was “able to work collectively,” based on a Google translation of her submit.
She beforehand spoke with the president-elect on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in early December.
The mutual admiration means Meloni is effectively positioned to place himself as a key Trump ally in Europe. Her transatlantic efforts come at a troublesome time for different European heavyweights Germany and France, whose leaders are grappling with home political challenges and going through criticism from Trump.
Meloni has various causes to court docket the incoming administration, not least the specter of Trump’s tariffs on Europe. Throughout his re-election marketing campaign, the previous president threatened to impose a 10% tariff on all items imported into the US, the European Union’s largest buying and selling associate by way of exports.
For Italy, the associated fee might be important.
A research by European danger evaluation agency Prometeia estimated that 10% tariffs on imports might price the Italian financial system as much as $7 billion, because the US is the nation’s second-largest export market after Germany. Caixabank analysts put Italy’s publicity to the US at round 4% of GDP, simply behind Germany at 5%.
Alongside along with his conferences with Trump, Meloni additionally maintains ties with Elon Musk, the Tesla boss who is anticipated to play a key function within the new Trump administration. In an interview with Italian information outlet Corriere della Sera, she described him as a “nice determine of our time”, including that he was a “genius” and had been wrongly portrayed as a “monster”.
