A feud between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni reignited after Trump posted a Truth Social post mocking the Italian leader on Sunday.
The post features an image of Meloni staring adoringly at Trump, with the caption “restraining order needed.” Meloni has yet to issue a response to the post, which comes on the eve of a NATO summit scheduled for Monday and Tuesday that both leaders plan to attend.
Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto did respond, however, telling news channel SKY TG24, “people come and go, but relations must endure,” reported Euro News. The country’s foreign minister also responded, and said “he was sure transatlantic relations go well beyond individual comments.”
The increasingly strained tensions between the two countries contrast with a previously close political friendship. Meloni was reportedly the sole European leader to receive an invitation to Trump’s January 2025 inauguration.
In June, Trump criticized Meloni over her refusal to support the U.S. plan to impose a military blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. There’s also been tension over Trump’s criticisms of Pope Leo, which Meloni, a Catholic, deemed “unacceptable.”
Last month, during the G7 Summit in France, Trump claimed Meloni “begged” him for a photo.
“Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social on June 20. “She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon.”
Meloni responded in turn, denying Trump’s claim that she begged him for a photo.
“Neither I nor Italy ever beg,” said Meloni in an X Post on June 19. The prime minister also accused Trump of lying about the interaction.
“I am frankly appalled,” she said in a response presented in Italian. “I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this with his own allies.”
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Meloni has also refused to allow the U.S. to use a Sicilian air base for aircraft en route to the Middle East in the Iran war, much to Trump’s frustration.