A sharp transatlantic rift burst into public view after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused her former ally Donald Trump of inventing an encounter between them, following the US President’s claim to an Italian broadcaster that she had “begged” him for a photograph during a G7 summit.
Meloni said she was “astonished” by the remarks, calling them “completely made up”.
She also rebuked him for showing far more leniency toward the West’s adversaries than toward long-standing allies.
Highlighting the depth of the anger inside Meloni’s administration, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he was scrapping a planned trip to the United States next week.
‘I felt sorry for her’
Footage from the gathering in France showed Meloni and Trump in an intense exchange, seated closely together on a small sofa, but the US leader later portrayed the interaction as little more than a favor he had granted her.
“She’s probably happy I talked to her. I didn’t have to talk to her,” Trump was quoted as saying by La7 TV in a short interview, after he himself raised the subject of Italy’s prime minister with the reporter.
“She begged me to take a picture with her. She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn’t have taken it, but I felt sorry for her,” Trump said, according to La7’s translation.
Georgia Meloni said Donald Trump’s claims are ‘completely made up’
A European diplomatic source told Reuters that Meloni had been among the most outspoken leaders at the G7, directly confronting Trump on several issues.
According to the source, she forcefully defended Europe’s position and told Trump to stop claiming Western allies had deserted him, insisting they had stood by him.
Meloni moved quickly to answer the president’s comments.
“Donald Trump’s statements are completely made up. I am frankly astonished. I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this towards his allies: it is not the first time, moreover,” she said in a video posted on social media.
“I can only say it is disappointing that he does not show the same determination with the enemies of the West and of the United States, whose leaders he instead treats with far greater indulgence,” she said.
“There is one thing he should remember: neither I nor Italy ever beg,” she added.
Explaining his decision to cancel the US visit, Foreign Minister Tajani wrote on X: “The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend the whole of Italy.”
Trump destroying historic ties, says Meloni official
One of Meloni’s closest political confidants, typically reluctant to step into the spotlight, also lashed out at Trump in language that would once have been hard to imagine.
“It is unclear whether out of intent or ineptitude (Trump) is wrecking the historic relations between the United States and Europe,” Giovanbattista Fazzolari, undersecretary to the prime minister’s office, said in a statement.
“With his inappropriate outbursts, he has managed no easy feat, to make the United States unpopular across the entire European continent, damaging not only Europe but above all the United States,” he added.
Meloni was once an outspoken backer of Trump and the only European leader to attend his inauguration in 2025.
But she turned on him this year after he lashed out at Pope Leo over the pontiff’s criticism of the Iran conflict.
That episode drew an unusually direct response from the US president, who accused her of lacking courage.
