At a press conference after the G7 summit, Meloni said she considered her relationship with Trump “unchanged” despite the earlier spat. “We have a strong enough character, we are both [leaders who] defend the national interest with determination, there is no need for us to clarify when we disagree on something,” she added.
In his post on Saturday, Trump returned to the dispute over the war in Iran.
“She wouldn’t even let us use Italy’s landing strips or runways, a great logistical inconvenience, and this despite the fact the U.S. contributes hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year to protect Italy, and other ‘so-called’ NATO Allies,” Trump said.
The U.S. president mocked Meloni’s popularity in her own country — where she lost a key referendum in March — and linked it to her foreign policy posture.
“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!),” Trump wrote.
While the tone of this dispute between Trump and an Italian prime minister is unprecedented, it is not the first time he has misspelled the name of an Italian head of government. He endorsed the reappointment of then-Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte in 2019 in a tweet referring to him as “Giuseppi” before deleting and reposting the message.