Meloni gives up on courting Trump as she seeks to gain favour with Italians

After decisively losing a popular referendum last month, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been on the back foot, fighting to regain support before next year’s general election.

President Donald Trump’s verbal assault on her Tuesday may have given her a way back with voters she desperately needs. Trump on Tuesday slammed Meloni, his one-time political ally, deepening a rift over her opposition to the war in Iran and his attack on Pope Leo XIV – putting her on the right side of public opinion against an unpopular US leader.

“Meloni has been looking for an assist to distance herself from Trump, and this frontal attack gives her the chance,” said Lorenzo Castellani, a researcher at Luiss University in Rome. “Attacks on the pope and the economic uncertainty have likely subverted the calculus on whether an alliance with him is sustainable.”

Read: Pope Leo vows to continue Iran war critiques after Trump attacks

Meloni isn’t alone. In the wake of Viktor Orban’s defeat in Hungary, even far-right parties are reassessing the political cost of being seen as too close to the mercurial US president. While MAGA’s European allies share Trump anti-immigrant and nationalist bent, the war in Iran and the resulting economic shockwaves have prompted a reassessment of the political calculus.

“For that kind of allegiance, you need rewards that the US doesn’t want to offer anymore, such as predictability and a reliable security umbrella,” said Beniamino Irdi, a former government official and head of consultancy Highground. “Basically, it’s full alignment or nothing.”

With the growth slowing and energy costs surging, the risk of aligning too closely with the US president may outweigh the potential upside. “She must speak to domestic public opinion before the economy worsens too much, otherwise she’ll end up tied to Trump for good and that’ll ruin her chances,” Castellani added.

Read: Trump attacks Pope for Iran war, immigration criticism

Trump once sang the praises of Italy’s first female premier by calling her a “beautiful young woman” and by saying she had “taken Europe by storm.”

Trump’s remarks on Tuesday were a near-total reversal. “I’m shocked by her,” he told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in a six-minute interview that was published in Italian. “I thought she was brave, I was wrong.”

Meloni has tried to keep Trump on side, even if she and her staff were repeatedly taken aback by his tirades. In early 2025, her message was clear: Despite differences, the US and Europe had to continue to work together. The Italian premier sent a video message to Conservative Political Action Conference, making the case against tariffs by saying they would bolster the west’s enemies.

She travelled to Washington in April and drew abundant praise from Trump – Meloni was “doing a fantastic job” and “everyone loves her and respects her. I can’t say that of many people,” he proclaimed.

She left with little of substance — just a promise (that he kept through Vice President JD Vance) to meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Rome just as the bloc and the US were negotiating a trade deal.

Amid the empty promises and Trumpian tweets, she insisted that Italy should remain within the transatlantic framework.

“Is this strategy wrong?” she asked reporters in January. “Then I must be shown the alternative, I must be told what we are to do. Must we distance ourselves in the sense of leaving NATO, closing the US bases, stopping trade, assaulting McDonald’s restaurants? What are we to do?”

The alternatives may not be apparent, but the message has since changed with the war on Iran and Trump’s verbal attacks on Pope Leo XIV two days ago. On Sunday, Trump attacked the pontiff, calling him “WEAK on crime and terrible for Foreign Policy.”

After initially limiting herself to praising the pontiff’s efforts for peace, she explicitly denounced Trump’s words as “unacceptable.” That, coupled with her exit from a defense pact with Israel in rejection of the war, likely inflamed the relationship beyond the point of no return.

“When you have allies and particularly when they are strategic you must have the courage to say you disagree,” she told reporters Tuesday. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a society in which religious leaders do what they’re told by political leaders.”

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