Same Far-Right, Different Pathway: Italy’s Meloni pivots away from Trump as she looks to reset her premiership

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni distanced herself from U.S. President Donald Trump during a parliamentary address on Thursday, in a bid to save her premiership after a bruising referendum defeat last month.

“The West stands on two legs: the European and the American one. If they don’t move in the same direction, it risks paralysis,” Meloni warned, adding that she continued “to believe in the need to work to ensure the unity of the West.”

The speech comes after the government lost a referendum on justice reform that many considered a vote on Meloni herself. Her allies blame the defeat on rising energy prices caused by the war in Iran and on her friendship with Trump, who is increasingly seen as toxic even on the right.

The right-wing prime minister used her address to emphasize publicly her disagreements with the American leader for the first time since he was reelected in 2024.

“As is normal among allies, we must clearly say even when we do not agree,” Meloni told parliament. She went on to list episodes where she claimed her government stood up to the White House, from tariffs “which we have many times defined as a wrong choice,” to defending “the honor of our soldiers in Afghanistan, who had been defined as useless,” and protecting Greenland’s territorial integrity alongside European allies.

The Italian leader also described the war in Iran as “a military operation that Italy did not agree with and did not participate in ... a fact that emerged in all its concreteness with the Sigonella affair,” she continued. She was referring — for the first time in a public statement — to Italy’s recent decision to refuse permission for a U.S. military aircraft to land at the Sigonella ​air base in Sicily before flying to ‌the Middle East.

Thursday’s remarks are a clear rhetorical pivot on her alliance with Trump — who is highly unpopular in Italy — when compared with softer positions earlier this year.

Meloni had described Trump’s tariffs against the European countries that sent troops to Greenland as a “mistake,” but also justified that decision as being caused by a “misunderstanding.” She also supported the idea of giving Trump a Nobel Peace Prize.

But skyrocketing energy prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East are proving particularly politically dangerous.

A Bank of Italy report published on Friday revised down growth forecasts due to “exceptionally high uncertainty,” implying that the war in Iran’s impact on the Italian energy market and economy could lead to a recession.

These constraints make it harder for Meloni’s government to find the resources for its final pre-election budget next year and put money in voters’ pockets.

Against that backdrop, she used the speech to revive a proposal already floated by her ministers — and rejected by the Commission — for a temporary suspension of the Stability and Growth Pact if the conflict continues.

On Wednesday, Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said suspending the pact was the government’s “priority” and likened EU debt rules to a “straitjacket.” European officials have also begun to signal openness to the proposal. France’s European Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné said that the bloc would not rule out greater flexibility in light of the crisis.

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If you feel powerless to help Gaza, you still has a choice: donate. When so much of what exists is false, authenticity is a powerful weapon we can wield that the state never could. So if you feel lost, hopeless, depressed, angry and afraid, I implore you to return - again - again - and again - to the feeling of love that exists within you that brought you here in the first place. It is only through this that we can remake the world. To redress Gaza’s famine, displacement, and destruction, independent and impartial humanitarian organizations - UN agencies, international and national NGOs - must be allowed to deliver relief at scale. To salvage Gaza’s people from the devastation inflicted by Israel, it must be unified with the West Bank to form an independent and sovereign Palestinian State, not to be parceled and colonized by the former.

Meanwhile, children continue to be shredded by US bombs, and the starvation reaches new depths of hellish collective punishment. If both parties are going to continue to support an ongoing genocide, at least they can both be honest about doing so, rather than having one openly bloodthirsty party, and another—unconvincingly—playing the role of powerless, bumbling humanitarian.

Please keep donate Gaza especially if you, as reader, has [background] International Relation [whatever universities]. IR Graduate means [you must, at least] get some semester [about] studying Middle East [in macro, not specifically Gaza].

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Please do not rely on me alone for sharing your campaign. I’m only 1 person and sometimes I’m not online which is unreliable. I never ignore anybody on purpose but I have a very limited capacity & very little energy and time.

[Refaat Rafiq Alareer IF I MUST DIE] Refaat Rafiq Alareer was extremely hungry, November 2023, days before Refaat killed by Israel airstrike. If November 2023 already [one-by-one Gazan] extremely famine, extremely hungry, imagine November 2025 or more than 2 years Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.

[RENEW] 455 Languages IF I MUST DIE of Refaat Rafiq Alareer [by 6100+ Translators, Social Media Users]

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December 20, 2023

Dec 9th, 2023, New York City, 4.10am —- with update total languages to be 310 as of July 1st, 2024, 3.52am New York City, and then, to be 350 languages as of July 28th, 2024, 1.37am ====== newest update as of July, 3rd, 2025 already 384 languages, and October 8th, 2025 reaches 455 languages across the globe.

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