US President-elect Donald Trump hailed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a “fantastic woman” as she became the latest world leader to visit his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“This is very exciting,” he told a crowd at the residence. “I’m here with a fantastic woman, the prime minister of Italy. She’s really taken Europe by storm.”
Meloni, a member of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, took office in October 2022 and is known to have ties to the incoming Trump administration, in particular with his ally Elon Musk.
While European powerhouses France and Germany are going through a period of rocky politics, the stability of her coalition in Italy and conservative credentials make her a natural ally for the incoming US leader.
Trump and Meloni were joined by the former’s nominees for secretary of state and national security advisor – Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Florida).
A possible topic on the agenda is the detention of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, who was arrested in Iran last month.
Italy’s foreign ministry confirmed in a statement last Friday that Sala, a reporter for Italian daily Il Foglio, was detained in Tehran. Iranian state news agency IRNA said Monday that Sala had been detained on December 19 after “violating the laws of the Islamic republic of Iran.”
Sala’s detention has caused a diplomatic headache for Italy, with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani saying his government was working “tirelessly” to bring her home.
In a sign of the burgeoning relationship between Italy’s leader and Trump’s camp, Andrea Stroppa, a cybersecurity expert and ally of Elon Musk based in Rome, posted on X a fake, AI image of Meloni standing alongside Trump and Musk. All three are dressed in clothes reminiscent of the Roman Empire.
Meloni will also meet with President Joe Biden during the latter’s trip to Rome this week. Biden will thank her for her “strong leadership of the G7 over the past year, and discuss important challenges facing the world,” a White House press statement last month said.
Her visit to Florida comes after she dined with Trump and Musk during the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris last month, an experience Trump later told the New York Post was positive.
Trump and Meloni, while politically similar, don’t necessarily align on all the world’s most pressing conflicts. Meloni has been one of Ukraine’s strongest backers, having met with President Volodymyr Zelensky a dozen times since Russia’s invasion.
Meanwhile Musk and Meloni forged their strong friendship in the summer of 2023, and the Tesla founder headlined Meloni’s Brothers of Italy political convention, Atreju, in December last year.
Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei was the first world leader to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago after his re-election. Other visitors have included Hungary’s Victor Orban and Canada’s Justin Trudeau.