Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the White House for a meeting on Thursday with President Donald Trump, seeking to ease tensions over U.S. tariffs on European goods and position herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels. Trump previously said the right-wing leader is a “fantastic woman” who is “really taking Europe by storm” when they met in Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s “chosen one” is traveling to Washington with hopes of convincing Trump of the merits of a “zero-for-zero” tariffs deal for the entire EU. Meloni’s visit to Washington makes her the first European leader to meet the president since he announced tariffs on European imports earlier this month.

She will, however, be walking a tightrope between representing the interests of the EU and remaining in Trump’s good books. Meloni acknowledged that it was a difficult time for Italy and the broader Eurozone but promised that her team would do its best because she is aware of what she represents and what she is defending.

Italy is particularly vulnerable to any changes to U.S. trade policies because around 10% of its exports – valued at approximately €67bn (£57bn; $76bn) – go to the US, Italy’s third biggest non-EU trading partner. The tariffs announced by Trump earlier this month caused Rome to reduce its growth forecast by nearly 50%. 

Meloni meets Trump amid U.S.-EU trade tensions

🚨Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will be meeting with President Trump tomorrow 🇺🇸🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/9LqKmGKwHp

— Ivanka Trump 🇺🇲 🦅 News (@IvankaNews_) April 17, 2025

Meloni is heading to the U.S. to meet Trump. It is a visit that will see her walk on a razor’s edge between representing EU interests and remaining the “Trump whisperer.” The BBC suggested that at this “fraught moment,” the Italian PM is perhaps one of the best-placed current European leaders to have this conversation with Trump.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen recognized that, and she spoke with Meloni regularly ahead of the trip.

Rachel Rizzo, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center, said Meloni is considered a “transatlanticist,” but also has a shared worldview, especially on the domestic front. She suggested that Meloni could speak a “Trumpian sort of language” that many other European leaders simply could not because she “got along” with both Trump and Tesla’s Elon Musk

“There’s a lot of nervousness in Brussels and other European capitals about what Meloni is trying to do…But they’re desperate enough; they’re not trying to stop her.”

–Jeremy Shapiro, a State Department official during the Obama administration

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic traveled to Washington in February and March, only to declare that the administration was not ready to engage seriously. However, one White House official granted anonymity, saying that Trump, who invited Meloni to his inauguration and praised her as a wonderful person, has long put personal relationships at the center of his diplomacy.

Meloni’s U.S. visit breeds mistrust from European leaders

Meloni’s relationship with Trump has also bred mistrust from European allies who believe she may deliver a message that deviates in significant ways from what other leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, would convey. 

Other European leaders have also had little success dissuading Trump, and they worry that any potential tariff exemptions for Italy would undercut the EU’s collective leverage in trade talks. Meloni has spoken with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to coordinate her message to Trump.

According to one EU official who was not authorized to speak about the situation publicly, EU leaders who have been unable to secure their own meetings with the president have also expressed concerns about diplomatic freelancing, threatening to widen cracks within the fragile 27-member coalition.

European officials also worry about the optics of a European leader traveling to see Trump only a week after he declared that countries were “calling us up, kissing my ass.”

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