Rome, June 19, 2026
Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani on Friday announced the cancellation of his planned visit to Miami for a business forum, after the controversy over US President Donald Trump’s comments on Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“The serious and offensive words of President Trump towards Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni offend all of Italy. For this reason, I have decided to cancel my visit to the United States scheduled for the next 21 and 22 June,” Tajani wrote on X.
“Trump’s rants about Giorgia Meloni are just the latest episode of attacks and insults directed at European leaders. It is unclear whether by will or ineptitude, he is ruining the historical relations between the United States and Europe. With his inappropriate statements, he has succeeded in the not-so-easy task of making the US unpopular throughout the European continent, damaging not only Europe but above all the United States,” echoes Giovanbattista Fazzolari, Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for the Implementation of the Government Program, Adnkronos news agency reported.
“When a foreign head of state, an unworthy pro-tempore representative of a nation that is a bulwark of dignity, freedom, and democracy, insults our Prime Minister, politics must react united. It is not a matter of right, left, or centre. But of national dignity. Right (or left) or wrong, it’s my country. Solidarity from the Liberal Democratic Party to Giorgia Meloni,” Luigi Marattin, Deputy and Secretary of the Liberal Democratic Party, posted on social media.
Trump reportedly said in an exclusive phone interview with ‘L’Aria che tira’ on La7, David Parenzo’s programme that Giorgia Meloni “begged me to take a photo with her. She wanted a photo with me so badly. I might not have done it, but I felt sorry for her.”
“How is your Prime Minister? How is she?”, Trump asked the La7 correspondent, who in turn asked the American President for a comment on the conversation he had with Meloni on the sidelines of the Evian summit. “She’s probably happy I spoke to her. I wasn’t obliged to speak to her,” he replied.
Trump then stated that “Europeans got everything wrong on energy and everything wrong on immigration. And if they don’t solve these problems, Europe will never be the same.”
“They probably won’t be able to solve them,” he added. “Immigration is a disaster, energy with all those wind turbines that are a failure, it’s a disaster,” said Trump, Adnkronos news agency reported.
As for Ukraine, “we only want peace”, and as the United States, “we are not involved” in the European Union accession process, he mentioned further.(Agency)
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