On Friday, there came a sudden fracturing of the relationship between President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni over the latter’s claims that the former lied about her, and as one conservative reporter observed, this latest controversy highlights something interesting about who Trump favors and who he offends.
“It really is fascinating,” posted Billy Binion of the conservative outlet Reason, “that Trump seems to delight in offending important allies while calling Xi Jinping ‘brilliant’ and ‘handsome’ and waxing poetic about how he ‘fell in love’ with Kim Jong Un.”
He posted this along with a retweet of a video from Meloni in which she denies, in Italian, Trump’s claim that she had “begged” him for a photo at the G7 summit. “Neither I nor Italy ever beg,” she declared.
Italy and the EU organization are both key U.S. allies, but Trump’s actions have increasingly strained those relationships. Trump’s tariffs against the EU, threats to invade Greenland, and disagreements over the Iran war dealt major blows to the trans-Atlantic alliance. And though Meloni — a far-right politician with ties to neo-fascist groups — came into office as a staunch MAGA ally, rising energy costs in Italy due to the closure of the Hormuz Strait have driven a rise in political pressure for her to break with Trump.
At the same time, as Binion notes, Trump has actively sought to court the favor of some of the world’s most notorious dictators and strongmen. Following his recent visit to China, many argued that Trump’s “elaborate” praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping not only made the American president look deferential, but also made the U.S. look “weak.” Trump has praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un directly to the face of the president of South Korea — the latter of whom is a vital U.S. military ally. And Trump has repeatedly celebrated Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing thanks to the notorious authoritarian at the G7 summit for remaining “totally neutral” in the Iran war, even though the U.S. intelligence community has reported that Russia helped Iran target American forces.
All of this is part of a troubling trend that Trump himself is all too willing to admit. As he said in April, he is easily “seduced” by anyone who is nice to him, “even if they’re bad people.”
Now, Trump’s disputed claim that Meloni wanted a photo with him isn’t the only photograph that has people talking about G7 and his growing political isolation. Early this week, the internet erupted with taunts over a photo that portrayed Trump standing alone and scowling on a stage while other smiling world leaders shook hands and spoke.
“Nobody wants to talk to Trump,” noted one person. Said another, “That picture encapsulates the current state of America pretty well.”