Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the Chamber of Deputies, Rome, April 9, 2026. REMO CASILLI/REUTERS
For a long time, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni acted as if she could avoid a clash. Despite the initial enthusiasm and her later demonstrations of loyalty, US President Donald Trump eventually turned his attention toward the Italian leader. "I'm shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong," Trump said of Meloni on Tuesday, April 14, in an interview with Corriere della Sera, criticizing her for not failing to involve Italy alongside the US in the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The previous day, after a year of transatlantic crisis, Meloni, the only European leader invited to Trump's inauguration, had for the first time expressed a negative opinion about the US president. Pressured by the opposition, she defended Pope Leo XIV, calling Trump's attack on him "unacceptable." The US president had called the pontiff "weak on crime" after he strongly opposed the military operations conducted by Israel and the United States in the Middle East. As the leader of a country whose capital is also the seat of the Catholic Church, Meloni could no longer afford any ambiguity after such an affront to the bishop of Rome.
