The US president says prospect of a commerce cope with the EU is ‘one hundred pc’, praising the Italian prime minister as ‘unbelievable’.
US President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have expressed optimism a few potential United States-European Union tariffs deal as the 2 leaders met on the White Home, as financial uncertainly roils the market.
Meloni has forged herself as the one European who can de-escalate Trump’s commerce struggle, and he or she has highlighted their conservative frequent floor, declaring that she needs to “make the West nice once more.”
“There will probably be a commerce deal, one hundred pc,” Trump declared on Thursday, whereas Meloni mentioned she was “certain” they may attain a deal.
The 2 leaders struck a heat tone throughout a working lunch and a gathering within the Oval Workplace, with Trump hailing the 48-year-old Italian chief as “unbelievable”.
‘Banking on Meloni’
Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the White Home, mentioned European leaders “are banking on Meloni” to make the bloc’s message to Trump “sound just a little bit higher”.
Meloni is the primary European chief to go to the Republican since he slapped 20 p.c tariffs on EU exports, which he has since suspended for 90 days.
The Italian chief mentioned Trump had accepted an invite to go to Rome within the “close to future” and that he may additionally meet European leaders there.
“Even when we’ve got some issues between the 2 shores of the Atlantic, it’s the time that we attempt to sit down and discover options,” she mentioned.
Meloni highlighted their shared views on immigration and “woke” ideology and added: “The aim for me is to make the West nice once more, and I believe we are able to do it collectively.”
However whereas Trump expressed confidence about an eventual cope with the 27-nation bloc he has accused of making an attempt to make the most of the US, he mentioned he was in “no rush”.
“Everyone needs to make a deal – and in the event that they don’t wish to make a deal, we’ll make the deal for them,” Trump added.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Federiga Bindi, professor on the College of Rome Tor Vergata, mentioned that Meloni is in a difficult place balancing the curiosity of Italian voters whereas additionally making an attempt to please the entire European bloc.
“I believe Meloni is making an attempt to use the teachings from [former Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi. Identical to she is at the moment, he was an outcast of European politics. [Berlusconi] leveraged his relationship with George W Bush,” Bindi defined.
“Berlusconi managed to drag it. I’m not certain if Meloni can handle to drag it [with Trump]. What’s completely different is that Berlusconi had an actual friendship with Bush, which is fairly unattainable to have with Trump.”
‘Get good’
Trump repeated his criticisms of Europe, saying it wanted to “get good” on immigration and enhance defence spending on NATO.
Russia’s struggle in Ukraine additionally remained a sensitive topic, with Trump telling Meloni that he was “not an enormous fan” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Meloni has been a staunch ally of Zelenskyy since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the nation in 2022, most not too long ago calling Moscow’s assault on the town of Sumy “horrible and vile”.
