Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy went to Mar-a-Lago to go to President-elect Donald J. Trump for an off-the-cuff assembly to be held on Saturday, three folks accustomed to the journey mentioned.
The journey comes simply days earlier than Ms Meloni welcomes President Biden to Rome for an official go to to Italy and the Vatican on January 9-12.
Ms Meloni and Mr Trump have expressed mutual appreciation prior to now, and her journey was one of many first a number of visits by a overseas chief to the president-elect’s Florida property since his election. The assembly boosts the hopes of Ms Meloni’s supporters that the conservative Italian prime minister will develop into Mr Trump’s most popular ally in Europe.
A lot of that position will contain mediating tensions between different European leaders and Mr. Trump, who has threatened to launch a commerce conflict with the continent in addition to scale back American help for some NATO international locations and for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
The agenda for Saturday night time’s assembly was not clear, however observers anticipated the 2 leaders to debate these points.
One other potential matter, based on observers, is the detention in Iran of a the prominent Italian reporter Cecilia Sala. This occurred a number of days after Italy arrested, on the request of the USA, an Iranian suspected of offering drone elements to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Iran routinely detains foreigners and twin residents to commerce them for cash and other people.
One particular person briefed on the assembly mentioned Ms Meloni had aggressively pushed for it.
She additionally has a superb relationship with Elon Musk, which her supporters hope will strengthen her worldwide standing as soon as Mr Trump turns into president.
Since he was elected, Mr. Trump has been welcomed to Mar-a-Lago Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbána defender of “intolerant democracy,” in addition to Argentina’s hard-right president, Javier Millay. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada grew to become the primary chief of the G7 to visit Mr. Trump in Florida after the election, after threatening to impose tariffs on Canada.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
