The Oval Office bargaining over tariffs is accelerating.
On Thursday, a day after a Japanese delegation met directly with President Trump, it is Italy’s turn, with the arrival at the White House of one of the few European leaders Mr. Trump actually likes: Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose conservative, more nationalist views should be, in the minds of many in the administration, a model for the rest of Europe.
Ms. Meloni has come on behalf of Italy, but in many ways on behalf of the rest of Europe. Nearly three months into Mr. Trump’s presidency, he appears in no rush to schedule a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission; Mr. Trump has said several times in recent weeks he believes the European Union was created to “screw” the United States.
As he greeted Ms. Meloni, Mr. Trump said that “there’ll be a trade deal, 100 percent” with the European Union before the end of the 90-day pause on some tariffs.
Administration officials, briefing reporters ahead of the meeting, said they believed that the Italian prime minister could be a conduit to the rest of Europe. The conversation was scheduled to begin with an elaborate lunch, also attended by Vice President JD Vance, whose one trip to Europe since taking office seemed to embrace Germany’s right-wing party and, by extension, similar political movements elsewhere in Europe.
While Mr. Trump has heaped praise on Ms. Meloni, Italy isn’t exactly the model he has in mind for either trade or defense. It runs a $45 billion trade surplus with the United States, a testament to American hunger for luxury Italian goods, sparkling wine, fine cheeses and those 3,500 Ferraris sold in the U.S. each year. (If you can afford the $250,000 base price, the 25 percent Trump tariff on imported autos may not be a deterrent.)
And though NATO countries agreed a decade ago that all members would spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on defense, Italy has yet to hit 1.5 percent, putting it among the eight laggards in the alliance who have not met the pledge.
The Japanese left the White House on Wednesday without a deal, after discussing tariffs on autos and auto parts, and the range of electronics, computers and specialty gear that flows into the United States from the world’s fourth largest economy. Mr. Trump, though, said they were getting closer.
Ms. Meloni likely won’t emerge with one either. But it is all part of the face-to-face sessions with the one many who, by whim, can raise or lower tariffs, or suspend them, or threaten to reimpose them — he did all of that last week.
David E. Sanger covers the Trump administration and a range of national security issues. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written four books on foreign policy and national security challenges.
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