For more than three years, Giorgia Meloni’s leadership of Italy has seemed unshakable. As the country’s first female prime minister, she shed a far-right past to govern with a pragmatic, steady hand, stable ratings and just the occasional scandal — a rarity in a country accustomed to volatile politics.
Since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term, she has positioned herself as someone who can curry his favor and avoid his retaliations — which Italy can ill afford — while steering clear of a clash with the E.U. institutions that service Italy’s enormous public debt. A delicate balance that she has maintained remarkably well.
But as Mr. Trump’s popularity craters to new lows in Europe, and the continent begins to find a backbone in its dealings with him, Ms. Meloni is discovering that being a favorite of the U.S. president can be a liability, too.
Ms. Meloni was elected in 2022, six months after Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine, on a far-right platform and in a coalition that included lawmakers who sounded decidedly pro-Russia. But she quickly dispelled any concerns among mainstream European politicians that they would be dealing with another Viktor Orban, Hungary’s Russia-friendly prime minister. Italy has sent military aid to Ukraine and is a member of the so-called coalition of the willing, a group of around 30 countries that have signaled their commitment to security guarantees for Ukraine after a cease-fire.
With Mr. Trump, she managed to avoid the pitiable cycle of deference and rejection that some European leaders fell into (such as Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, for example, who proffered a royal invitation when he first visited the Oval Office, only for the relationship to crumble). But Ms. Meloni seemed to have succeeded in obtaining Mr. Trump’s real favor — partly attributable to her style, which is accommodating but never groveling; partly to ideological affinity. Either way, she was the only sitting European leader who attended his inauguration, and in a recent conversation with The Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, Mr. Trump described her as “a great leader and a friend of mine.”
But Mr. Trump has become increasingly toxic in Europe. Discussing the Iran war in an address to Parliament on March 11, Ms. Meloni said that Italy “is not taking part in that intervention and does not intend to take part,” and placed the strikes “outside the perimeter” of an international system “in crisis.” When Mr. Trump demanded that European countries help to open the Strait of Hormuz, he received several variations on the curt reply from Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, who said on March 16 in Berlin that “the question of how Germany might become militarily involved here does not arise.”
On March 20, Ms. Meloni said, “No one is considering an Italian military mission to force the blockade of the strait.”
Mr. Trump’s approval rating in Italy is almost half of what it was about a year ago, at 19 percent. Italian public opinion is strongly against the war in Iran; consumers and businesses are being hit with price increases on oil and gas; and agriculture is being squeezed by the fertilizer shortage. If it’s not possible to extract any visible advantage from being Mr. Trump’s European favorite, what exactly is the point?
That was the mood last month when Italians voted in what, officially, was a referendum on judicial reform, but that became a vote of confidence on Ms. Meloni’s government, which was backing the reform. Turnout was higher than expected and “No” won with a solid margin, almost 54 percent. She suddenly looked vulnerable, and the opposition has sensed an opportunity.
In the past two years, Ms. Meloni’s premiership has survived, seemingly unscathed, a sex scandal involving the culture minister, a fraud investigation into the tourism minister, an investigation into the repatriation of a Libyan warlord who was the subject of an international arrest warrant and the conviction of an under secretary for revealing classified information. In 2024 Ms. Meloni’s approval rating was 41 percent; by November 2025, it had risen to 45.
The improbably long honeymoon is over. After the results of the referendum were in, she forced the resignation of the tourism minister under investigation and of the convicted under secretary, although neither scandal was related to judicial reform. Last week, Italy reportedly denied U.S. military aircraft permission to land at an air base in Sicily before heading to the Middle East because the United States had not requested clearance, though the government denied that the refusal was down to tensions with Washington.
There is an old Italian proverb that can be roughly translated as, “I’ll protect myself from my enemies; may God protect me from my friends.” The cost of being Mr. Trump’s friend in Europe these days increasingly outweighs the benefits.
Anna Momigliano is an editor for The Corriere della Sera.
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