The two leaders met several times at the three-day G7 gathering in Evian for the first time since their public spat in April when the Italian prime minister called Trump’s attacks on Pope Leo “unacceptable,” prompting the American president to say Meloni was “no longer the same person” he once knew.
An Italian diplomat described Meloni and Trump’s first tête-à-tête on the sidelines of Monday evening’s G7 dinner as a “clarification meeting.” On the margins of one of the G7 roundtables on Tuesday, European Council President António Costa joked that the two seemed to be “friends again.” Trump replied, “I’ve been abandoned,” drawing a laugh from Meloni, who said: “No, you were not.”
During the G7 final press conference on Wednesday, Meloni reassured reporters that she found the relationship with Trump “unchanged.”
“Donald Trump and I are two people with fairly strong personalities, who defend our national interests. There’s no need for us to clarify things when we disagree on something because in the end each of us understands the other person’s point of view,” she said.
Other members of the Italian government publicly defended their prime minister.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani attacked Trump’s comments as “serious and offensive to all of Italy,” cancelling a planned visit to the U.S. scheduled for Sunday.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto wrote on X that he couldn’t imagine Meloni asking anyone for a photo, lamenting Trump’s “lack of style.”