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The closest thing Donald Trump had to a friend among Europe's leaders has turned on him. Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister, publicly accused the US president of inventing a story that she pleaded with him for a photograph at last week's G7 summit — and used the moment to deliver one of the sharpest rebukes any European leader has aimed at Washington this year.
The trigger was an interview Trump gave to the Italian broadcaster La7 on 19 June. He claimed Meloni had begged him for a picture at the summit in Evian-les-Bains and said he agreed only because he felt sorry for her. She wanted the photo so badly, he said, framing it as a favour granted to a supplicant.
Meloni's reply came by video on social media within hours. "Donald Trump's statements are completely made up," she said. "I am frankly astonished." Then the line that ran across every Italian front page: neither she nor Italy ever begs for anything from anyone. She added a pointed observation — that the president seems to treat the West's allies with less respect than its adversaries.
What might have stayed a personal spat became a national one. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who leads the centre-right Forza Italia inside Meloni's coalition, called the remarks offensive to the whole country and cancelled a visit to the United States that had been planned for 21 and 22 June. Politicians who agree on little else, from Meloni's right-wing bloc to the opposition, lined up to defend her.
That unity matters. Meloni governs a fractious coalition and faces an opposition that has spent years tying her to Trump. By making the quarrel about Italy's dignity rather than her own, she turned an awkward moment into a rare cross-party rally.
The blow-up did not come from nowhere. Meloni was Trump's most reliable European partner — the only EU leader to attend his second inauguration in 2025, and for months the bridge between his White House and a wary Brussels. The relationship cooled sharply over Italy's refusal to back the US military campaign against Iran. When Meloni criticised Trump for attacking Pope Leo over the pope's condemnation of that campaign, Trump publicly accused her of lacking courage. The photo jibe was the next escalation.
Europe has spent eighteen months managing Trump through a handful of personal relationships, and Meloni's was the warmest. Her break leaves the continent with one fewer line into a White House that has already bypassed Brussels on trade, defence and Iran. Spain's Pedro Sánchez had been the lone EU leader willing to confront Trump head-on; now Italy's conservative prime minister has joined him, which tells you how little goodwill is left to spend. The risk for Europe is not the lost photo-op. It is that the last leaders who could still pick up the phone to Trump are deciding it is no longer worth the humiliation — and that leaves the EU negotiating an increasingly transactional alliance with almost no personal capital in reserve.
