Since then, Meloni has increasingly distanced herself from Trump. In late March, the Meloni government didn’t let U.S. military aircraft en route to the Middle East land at the Sigonella air base in Sicily. Days later in April, before the Italian parliament, Meloni enumerated instances in which her government disagreed with the White House. “As is normal among allies, we must clearly say even when we do not agree,” she said.
Meloni and Trump met several times at the three-day G7 summit in the French town of Évian-les-Bains last week. Reuters reported, citing a European diplomatic source, that Meloni had outspokenly challenged Trump on several points and had defended Europe and called him out for saying he had been abandoned by his allies in the West. On the sidelines of a G7 roundtable, European Council President António Costa had joked that Meloni and Trump appeared to be “friends again,” to which the U.S. President replied: “I was abandoned.” Meloni quickly said that wasn’t true.
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