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President-elect Trump is hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at Mar a Lago this weekend, a sign that he plans to forge warmer relations with one of his closest ideological allies in Europe.
Trump praised Meloni 47 for “taking Europe by storm” during Saturday night. Maloney was elected in 2022 after running on a conservative pro-family and anti-immigration platform that many in the media called “far-right.”
Meloni is Italy’s first female prime minister and has been the leader of the Brotherhood of Italy party since 2014. Both her and her party’s popularity has grown due to the backlash over the Italian government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maloney’s coalition government is probably Trump’s closest ideological ally in the European Union. Meloni has also developed a close relationship with top Trump ally Elon Musk, who has been a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago since Election Day.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni speaks to the media with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (not pictured) after their meeting at Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome, Italy on October 10, 2024. (Massimo Valicchio/Photo by Nur via Getty Images)
Like the US, Italy faces a major illegal immigration problem with migrants crossing the Mediterranean to its shores. Meloni’s “return center” policy ensures migrants are not released to Italy during the asylum process, a program she says has become a “model” for Europe.
“It’s a new, brave, unprecedented path, but one that perfectly reflects the European spirit,” she said of the program in October.
Meloni has also proven to go against the grain on social issues, taking action last year to limit parental rights for same-sex couples. The policy ensures that only the biological parents of a child in a same-sex marriage enjoy full parental rights.
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Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc and CEO of X, speaks at the Atreju political convention organized by Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) on December 15, 2023. in Rome, Italy. The right-wing political party of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni organized a four-day political festival in the Italian capital. (Antonio Masiello/Getty Images)
The Maloney Coalition the government has also proved unusually stable compared to recent Italian history. She has avoided infighting within her party, and opposition leaders have been unable to rally around a single candidate to effectively challenge her.
All of this puts Maloney in a natural position to serve as a mediator between the Trump administration and the European Union over the next four years.
Georgia Maloney showed up unannounced at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence this weekend. (Kevin Deitch/Getty Images)
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s nominee for secretary of state, was also in attendance when Maloney visited Trump’s Florida residence this weekend.
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President Biden is set to travel to Rome later this week to meet with Meloni and then Pope Francis. The White House said Biden’s meeting with Meloni would “underscore the strength of the US-Italy relationship” and include the president thanking the prime minister “for her strong leadership of the G7 over the past year.”
