How Italy’s PM Meloni could bridge the gap between Trump and Europe

Rome (CNN) — A few years ago, it would have been unimaginable that Italy would be home to one of the most stable governments in Europe. Italian coalition administrations tended to last just over a year before collapsing, making Italy predictably unpredictable.

But a series of factors, including government crises in relatively stable countries like France and Germany, and the roaring popularity of Italy’s current coalition led by far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in power since 2022, have made Rome the key player in Europe’s relationship with the US under Donald Trump’s second presidency.

During his last term Trump called Europe a “foe” of the US. This time, Meloni has the potential to turn that around thanks in part to their mutual friend Elon Musk.

Musk, Trump and Meloni dined together at French President Emmanuel Macron’s 60-person dinner after the official reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last weekend, an experience Trump later told The New York Post was positive.

“We got along great,” he said, adding that he and Meloni had spent “a lot of time together.”

Describing the diminutive figure (Meloni herself has often joked about her 5’ 2” height) as a “live wire,” he predicted that they could “straighten out the world a little bit.”

The two leaders, while politically similar, don’t necessarily align on all the world’s most pressing conflicts. Meloni has been one of Ukraine’s strongest backers, having met with President Volodymyr Zelensky a dozen times since Russia’s invasion.

Whether she can in any way affect what Trump might do, however, is hard to know, but she will have first dibs to try in Europe.

“Before there is a new government in Germany and with the current situation in France, when Trump comes into the White House, Italy will have a kind of monopoly, as the only country with a stable government,” Giovanni Orsina, director of the department of Political Science at Luiss University in Rome, told CNN.

“Meloni and Musk have a very good ongoing relationship, and Musk can be a kind of best friend to both, as long as the Trump-Musk honeymoon lasts at least.”

Musk and Meloni forged their very strong friendship in the summer of 2023, and the Tesla founder headlined Meloni’s Brothers of Italy political convention, Atreju, in December last year.

He is rumored to be making a surprise appearance at the same convention this weekend in Rome, which is being headlined by Argentinian President Javier Milei, another of Trump’s populist bedfellows.

So close is their relationship that Meloni and Musk had to take to social media earlier this year to dispel rumors of a romance, after he gushed about her beauty when he presented her with a Global Citizens Award on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

A photo of them locked in a gaze went viral, to which Musk tweeted that he was there with his mother and that there is “no romantic relationship whatsoever with PM Meloni.”

Orsina believes that Musk can make it easier for the Italian prime minister to “get in touch” with Trump whenever she feels the need.

“There is an opportunity for Meloni to take the initiative and be a bridge between the Trump administration and Europe,” he said.

Meloni claims to have already started that bridging process in Paris, posting a thumbs-up shot of herself with Trump on X with the headline, “There is already an alliance. The USA-EU axis passes through Italy.”

This is not the first time Meloni has been in the good graces of the MAGA elite. Steve Bannon was her American supporter before Musk, headlining her Atreju political convention back in 2018, telling CNN at the time that he believed she would be one of the most important politicians in Europe.

Once she was elected in 2022 and became more moderate, Bannon, no longer wielding the power he once did as Trump’s chief strategist, grew cold, telling Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera last week that she has been a disappointment.

“Meloni has almost turned into a Nikki Haley,” he told the Italian daily, referring to Trump’s opponent in the Republican primaries. Citing her support for Ukraine, and what he describes as Italy’s lack of work on trade, he predicts that it won’t be Meloni who influences Trump, but the other way around.

“I think her attitude will change with the arrival of President Trump, who will convince her,” Bannon said. “And that NATO countries will get on board quite quickly. Otherwise, if she really believes what she has said in recent years, she should be ready with others in Europe to put money into it, to write checks as big as the speeches. We in the MAGA movement are adamant, we want to cut funding for Ukraine in the Chamber by 100%.”

For the moment, Meloni appears to be on Musk’s, and as a result, Trump’s right sides.

“She is a ‘day after’ politician, much more than a ‘day before’ politician,” Orsina says, referring to the likelihood she will be reactive rather than proactive when it comes to Trump’s approach to Europe.

The-CNN-Wire
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