For international leaders, visiting the White House these days is an unpredictable undertaking that comes with a risk of being embarrassed, or worse, berated, by President Trump. For Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Thursday’s meeting in the Oval Office was largely a smooth affair, with Mr. Trump covering her in hyperbolic praise and making clear he is fond of her.
But beyond the friendly anti-immigration banter, and shared optimism that the European Union and the United States would reach a trade deal, neither leader indicated that they had made substantial progress on negotiations over tariffs and other issues.
“We’re in no rush,” Mr. Trump said.
Ms. Meloni was the first European leader to visit the White House since Mr. Trump imposed and then partly paused sweeping tariffs against the European Union. And the meeting dispelled any remaining doubts on the special relationship between the two leaders. But what the rapport could yield for Italy and for Europe remained unclear.
“She was treaded like a first-rank ally,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a political scientist at Luiss Guido Carli university in Rome, adding that it was unusual for Italy, which is not a military or economic powerhouse.
“She became a de facto mediator,” he added, “but in concrete terms, she did not bring anything home.”
The European countries’ trade policy is conducted collectively through the European Union, and Ms. Meloni made it clear that she could not look for a deal on behalf of the bloc. So perhaps her biggest achievement was having Mr. Trump accept her invitation to pay an official visit in the “near future” to Rome, where she hoped he would meet with European officials. If that happens, it could help cement her position as a conduit between Europe and the United States. For now, though, as she said, Mr. Trump had offered no guarantee that he would meet with European officials.
During the public-facing part of the meeting, Ms. Meloni sought to bond with Mr. Trump over their common aversion to ideology that they considered “woke,” and to diversity, equity and inclusion policies. She also committed to increase imports of American natural gas and bolster military spending, key elements of Mr. Trump’s agenda. She dismissed a question about Mr. Trump’s disparaging of Europe as “a parasite” living off the United States.
“Have you ever said that?” she asked the president. “He never said that.”
At the same time she did not — as some had feared — turn her back on Europe. She upheld her position on Ukraine, saying, “the invader was Putin and Russia.” And she appeared determined to use her access to Mr. Trump to promote dialogue between the United States and the European Union in general.
“Even if we have some problems between the two shores of the Atlantic,” she said, “I think it is a time to try to sit down and find solutions.” She added that her goal was to “make the West great again,” expanding on Mr. Trump’s MAGA slogan. “And I think we can do it together.”
At their meeting, Mr. Trump struck a more conciliatory tone toward the European Union, which he has said was created to “screw” the United States. This time, he said that “Europe is very important to me,” and that he wanted “Europe to do very well.”
But at the same time, even as he sat by Ms. Meloni, whom he called a friend, he continued to praise tariffs, which Italy is particularly vulnerable to, and assert his intention to forcefully impose his conditions on his trading partners.
“Everybody wants to make a deal and if they don’t want to make a deal, we’ll make the deal for them,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “We’ll just say this is what it is.”
“We’re the one that really sets the deal,” he added, “and that’s what we’ll be doing.”
In Brussels, officials, consumer groups and politicians have spent weeks trying to figure out whether the Trump administration is truly interested in making a deal — and they have been left with little clarity. Much of the time, European officials say, they do not even know if they are talking to the right people in the Trump administration while trying to negotiate.
What happens next “is up to the U.S.,” said Léa Auffret, the head of international affairs for BEUC, the European Consumer Organization, and depends on whether “the U.S. is really serious and wants to negotiate.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.
Emma Bubola is a Times reporter based in Rome.
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