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(Bloomberg) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said she isn’t a “shrink to international leaders” after she was asked to give advice to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his upcoming trip to meet US President Donald Trump.
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The tongue-in-cheek remarks came as the two leaders met in Rome for their first-ever bilateral meeting.
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“The German chancellor is a politician of great experience,” Meloni said, smiling. “Also, I am not a shrink to international leaders.”
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“Each and every one of us has to work for their own national interest,” she added. “Trump is a US president who defends US interests.”
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As she was asked what advice would help Merz win over Trump, the chancellor looked at her, laughed and said: “Go ahead.”
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He “respects leaders that defend the national interest,” she said.
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Meloni traveled to Washington last month to press Trump on trade, receiving effusive praise from the US leader but leaving with little of substance to show for it. At the White House, Trump said the Italian leader had “taken Europe by storm.”
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The exchange is emblematic of how leaders are grappling with Washington’s tariffs, as well as an upset of long-held foreign policy tenets.
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Merz praised Italy as an important “strategic partner” in EU foreign policy and made clear that Meloni will play a role in Europe’s peace initiative for Ukraine. He denied media reports that claimed that his coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats, had called for an exclusion of Italy from the peace talks.
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German officials are trying to arrange a meeting with Trump in the White House as early as the end of May. Merz said that he will use the visit to lobby for an end of the EU’s trade conflict with the US.
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To be sure, Meloni has been caught up in a complex balancing act with regard to Trump, coming under pressure both at home and abroad. Bloomberg has previously reported that while the Italian leader has been privately startled by his remarks, she has however chosen to avoid criticism of him at all costs, sometimes going against the prevailing narrative among most European leaders.
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Meloni didn’t have warm relations with Merz’s predecessor Olaf Scholz, holding opposite views on migration that however began to converge toward the end of his mandate.
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Merz and Meloni said they would hold a high level intergovernmental summit next year, deepening collaboration in areas including defense and energy.
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Saturday’s bilateral, held before Pope Leo XIV’s enthronement on Sunday, was the “beginning of a new phase” in relations between Rome and Berlin, she said.
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