US President-elect Donald Trump meets with Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, USA on January 4, 2025.
Italian Government | Reuters
Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni made a surprise visit to Mar-a-Lago on Sunday, meeting President-elect Donald Trump for the second time since he won the US election in November.
During the meeting in Florida, Trump described Meloni as a “fantastic woman … she really took Europe by storm” in a press briefing.
Meloni is in the meantime published on X that she had a “nice evening” with Trump, adding that she was “ready to work together,” according to a Google translation of her post.
She previously spoke with the newly elected president on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in early December.
The mutual admiration means Meloni is well placed to position himself as a key Trump ally in Europe. Her transatlantic efforts come at a complicated time for fellow European heavyweights Germany and France, whose leaders are grappling with domestic political challenges and have both faced criticism from Trump.
Meloni has a number of reasons to woo the new administration, not least Trump’s threat of tariffs on Europe. During the re-election campaign, former President threatened to introduce a 10% tariff. on all goods imported into the USA — the largest trading partner of the European Union in terms of exports.
US President-elect Donald Trump meets with Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, USA on January 4, 2025.
Italian Government | Reuters
For Italy, the cost could be significant.
A study by European risk analysis firm Prometeia calculated that 10% tariffs on imports could cost the Italian economy up to $7 billion, as the US is the country’s second largest export market after Germany. Caixabank analysts believe that Italy’s exposure to the US is around 4% of GDP, just behind Germany with 5%.
In addition to meetings with Trump, Meloni has also cultivated ties with Elon Musk, the head of Tesla who is expected to play a key role in the new Trump administration. In an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, she described him as “a great figure of our time”, adding that he was a “genius” and wrongly portrayed as a “monster”.
