President Trump has once again lashed out at Italy, as Washington and this 'wayward' NATO ally continue to clash on a range of issues from Iran to Israel to Ukraine..
It follows on the heels of the cancellation of the planned diplomatic visit by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani. President Trump on Saturday has newly taken to Truth Social to reiterate that PM Meloni "asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France."
He continued: “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 (But so did NATO, for that matter!).”
According to more background:
Trump’s comments were aired Friday on the La7 network. A correspondent had asked the president about Ukraine, but Trump raised Meloni and made the claim about the photo. Trump said he was not obliged to take the picture with her but that he felt sorry for her and agreed, La7 said. The broadcaster put a dubbed version of the conversation online, but not the original English audio.
Meloni has very publicly rejected Trump's version of events at the G7:
Clearly irked at President Donald Trump’s suggestion that she had had “begged” him for a photo at the Group of Seven summit earlier this week, the Italian prime minister said this was “totally fabricated.”
Bilateral defense agreements and NATO's base sharing framework allows US access to key strategic hubs for US operations in the Mediterranean - however, Italian law and a historic treaty requires parliamentary approval for anything outside that scope.
It was in late March that for the first time Italy's defense ministry confirmed that "some US bombers" were denied landing at Sigonella – one of seven US navy bases in Italy.
Among the scenes at a G7 working lunch in France on June 16 was this...
Italy tried to frame the issue as merely bureaucratic and an issue of paperwork. Initial complaints were that the US didn't follow required permission protocol, and requested landing only while in the air and already en route to Sicily.
Meloni's office has all the while maintained it is "acting in full compliance with existing international agreements" - while underscoring that each flight request must be "carefully examined on a case-by-case basis, as has always been the case in the past."
But the truth also is that American hegemonic action in the Middle East, and the Iran conflict in particular, is deeply unpopular among the Italian population, which has long had a strongly anti-war bent especially among the youth. Meloni has tried to assure here electorate that she's never "begged" for anything from Trump.