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Giorgia Meloni dined with Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago golf club on Saturday as the Italian prime minister seeks to strengthen ties with the US president-elect ahead of his inauguration.
The Italian leader’s unannounced trip comes days before outgoing US President Joe Biden is due to visit Rome and the Vatican, which will be his last trip abroad before leaving office.
“This is very exciting — I’m here with a fantastic woman — the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the crowd at Mar-a-Lago. “She really conquered Europe, like everyone else, and we’re having dinner tonight.”
Meloni has not commented publicly, nor has her office released any statements about her trip.
She was an ardent fan of Trump during his first term – while still a fringe opposition figure – and recently struck up a close friendship with Trump adviser Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.
Also at Mar-a-Lago was Marco Rubio, Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, who called Meloni “a great ally, a strong leader.”
Members of Melona’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party hoped the ideological affinity between the two leaders would help her become one of Trump’s key European interlocutors. Trump expressed his enthusiasm for the Italian leader, whom he also met last month in Paris during the reopening of the Notre-Dame Cathedral.
Meloni is one of a handful of foreign leaders who have gone to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump after his re-election and before his Jan. 20 inauguration. Right-wing Trump allies Viktor Orbán from Hungary and Javier Milei from Argentina visited her. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also made an emergency visit after Trump threatened to impose 25 percent import tariffs on Canada.
Meloni’s trip comes as she faces her most difficult diplomatic challenge since taking office amid a domestic political outcry over her arrest in Iran Italian journalist Cecilia Sala.
Sala, who was in Iran on a valid journalist’s visa, was detained just days after Italy arrested an Iranian engineer and businessman wanted in the US for allegedly exporting drone technology used to kill three US soldiers in Jordan a year ago.
The Italian journalist told her family in a rare call home that she was being held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, sleeping on the floor, with the light on at all times.
Iran’s official state news agency, IRNA, reported that Sala was arrested for “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic,” without providing any further details.
However, the Iranian embassy in Rome specifically linked Sala’s detention to the December 16 Italian arrest of Mohammad Abedini, an engineer whose speedy release was demanded by Tehran.
Abedini, who is now in prison in Milan, is wanted by the US to stand trial on various criminal charges for the alleged “illegal export of sophisticated electronic components” from the US to Iran, according to the US Department of Justice.
Tehran has warned Rome of damage to bilateral ties if its citizen is extradited to the US. Abedini is scheduled to appear in court in Italy on January 15, where his lawyer will argue for his release from prison and house arrest.
The U.S. Justice Department warned Rome against such a move, citing past precedents in which suspects wanted by the U.S. for criminal trial have succeeded escape from Italian house arrest.
The Sala case is not the only issue likely to test Rome’s relationship with Washington once Trump returns to the White House later this month.
Businesses fear the Italian economy will suffer a severe blow if Trump follows through on his promise to impose high tariffs on all imports. Rome has also failed to meet its NATO commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense — a big focus for Trump, who wants Europe to pay more of its own security costs.
Additional reporting by Giuliano Ricozzi in Rome
