{"id":606723,"date":"2026-04-14T18:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606723\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T18:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T18:00:11","slug":"trump-lashes-out-at-european-ally-meloni-amid-tensions-over-pope-and-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/606723\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump lashes out at European ally Meloni amid tensions over Pope and NATO"},"content":{"rendered":"

US President Donald Trump has criticised Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a rift between him and the so-called “Trump whisperer” widens.<\/p>\n

In quotes first published by Bloomberg, Mr Trump gave several critical remarks to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in which he said: “I thought she was brave, I was wrong.”<\/p>\n

The US president’s criticism, made on Tuesday local time, came on the same day Italy suspended a defence cooperation agreement it had with Israel.<\/p>\n

“When there are things we don’t agree with, we act accordingly,” Ms Meloni said, after it emerged that Israeli troops last week fired shots at Italian personnel working for the UN in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

The agreement, which covered the procurement, training and the “import, export and transit of defence and military equipment”, had been up for renewal. It first came into effect under previous prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in 2006.<\/p>\n

Iran war live updates<\/a>: For the latest news on the Middle East crisis, read our blog<\/p>\n

Ms Meloni also pushed back on Mr Trump’s extraordinary back-and-forth exchange with Pope Leo XIV, saying she supported the pontiff’s anti-war stance.<\/p>\n

“I express my solidarity with Pope Leo, frankly I would not feel very comfortable in a society where religious leaders do what political leaders say,” she said.\"A<\/p>\n

Pope Leo has publicly decried the “madness of war” to his 1.4 billion followers. (AP: Gregorio Borgia)<\/p>\n

The two public stands against the US and Israel, combined with Italy’s recent decision to deny US planes permission to land at a Sicilian air base, appear to have strained the Italian prime minister’s once-close relationship with Mr Trump.<\/p>\n

“I’m shocked by her,” Mr Trump told the Corriere della Sera.<\/p>\n

“She doesn’t care if Iran has a nuclear weapon and would let it blow Italy to smithereens in two minutes if it could.”<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also appeared to group Ms Meloni in with other European allies, with whom he has grown increasingly frustrated in recent weeks due to a perceived lack of support for his military strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n

“Meloni doesn’t want to help us with NATO, she doesn’t want to help us get rid of the nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0“She’s very different from what I thought.”<\/p>\n

Domestic considerations for Meloni<\/p>\n

Ms Meloni has long been considered one of Mr Trump’s ideological allies in Europe, and the US president has previously issued glowing endorsements of her leadership and style.<\/p>\n

Commentators had previously described her as the “Trump whisperer”<\/a>, while Mr Trump showered her with praise, including that she was a “fantastic woman”.<\/p>\n

But the US president is finding himself increasingly isolated over the war in Iran, with many leaders now providing more forthright criticism of his actions.<\/p>\n

Recent polls suggest Mr Trump is deeply unpopular among Italian voters and Ms Meloni’s closeness with him is believed to have contributed to her defeat last month in a referendum on judicial reform.<\/p>\n

The war in Iran has also pushed up energy prices in Italy, which is heavily dependent on oil and gas imports.<\/p>\n

\"Birds<\/p>\n

Two thirds of Italian voters oppose the US’s decision to go to war, polling shows. (Reuters: Francis Mascarenhas)<\/p>\n

Trump more isolated in Europe<\/p>\n

Mr Trump’s criticism of the Italian prime minister comes just a day after he also labelled the pope “WEAK on crime”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He then posted and later deleted an AI-generated image of himself depicted as a Jesus-like figure<\/a>, in a move that garnered criticism from both Catholics and Evangelicals.<\/p>\n

In response, the pontiff said he would continue to call for peace and was not afraid of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

The blow-up with both the Italian leader and the pope also came days after Mr Trump posted that “an entire civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not strike a deal with the US.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump also suffered another setback in Europe this week, after his ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n, lost a parliamentary election in a landslide, ending 16 years of rule.<\/p>\n

ABC\/wires<\/p>\n

Loading…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump has criticised Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a rift between him and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2490,8381,43,5575,44,92719,96232,41,39,42,40,20291],"class_list":["post-606723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}