Italy’s Giorgia Meloni has emerged as the US president’s favourite EU interlocutor, with hopes growing she could talk him out of a trade war.

Giorgia Meloni’s presence at Donald Trump’s inauguration aimed to reinforce her status as a privileged interlocutor of the new US administration. But this position carries risks for Italy and the EU.

He hails a fantastic woman sweeping all before her in Europe. She praises a strong and shrewd defender of the West. Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni are fast forging a new transatlantic "special relationship".

Critics noted the meeting's absence, but ECR Secretary-General Antonio Giordano, who was in Washington with Meloni, played down its significance to Euractiv, stating Meloni spent four hours with Trump, a meeting that had a positive outcome.

After forging unexpectedly fond ties with U.S. President Joe Biden, Italy’s right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni is poised to leverage a more natural alliance with President-elect Donald Trump that positions her as a key interlocutor between the U.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is one of just a handful of world leaders to have been invited to Mar-a-Lago since his election victory last November — but whether she can be Europe's "Trump whisperer" is more complicated.

And while many extreme-right politicians in Europe have wavered in their support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Meloni has offered fulsome backing for Kyiv – even convincing her fellow rightwinger, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, to agree to a €50bn aid package to the war-torn country.

Italy will work to strengthen dialogue between the European Union and the United States, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on congratulating President Donald Trump on his return to the White House. "Italy will always work to strengthen the dialogue between the US and Europe,