Italian PM Meloni Hits Back at Trump: Focus on Your Own Popularity

Relations between US President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have heated up. Meloni has asked Trump to focus on his own popularity. The tension arose after Trump claimed that Meloni ‘begged’ for a photo with him on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France. Referring to a written transcript of a telephone interview given to La7 by AFP, Trump said Meloni ‘begged me for a photo’ at the G7 summit this week, and that he only agreed because he ‘felt sorry for her’. Trump also said Meloni might be ‘happy that I spoke to her, I didn’t have to speak to her’. The broadcast of La7’s interview with Trump featured a dubbed version online, not the original English audio. During the interview, the La7 correspondent asked Trump about Ukraine, but the US President then mentioned Meloni and discussed their meeting at the G7 summit. Meloni responded by stating that she and Italians never beg for photos. Trump later wrote about Meloni on social media, claiming she repeatedly asked for a photo with him during the G7 meeting in France. ‘Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy repeatedly asked to take a photo with me during the G-7 meeting in France. Her popularity in Italy is declining, perhaps because she refused the United States, a country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring or developing nuclear weapons (but NATO did the same),’ Trump wrote on social media. Meloni was angered by Trump’s claims, calling the attacks nonsensical. ‘President Trump, these continuous and unprovoked attacks make no sense,’ Meloni said in an Instagram post on Saturday (20/6/2026). According to Meloni, her popularity does not depend on her relationship with Trump. She believes her popularity depends on her ability to defend Italy’s national interests. ‘My popularity depends on my ability to defend Italy’s national interests, and that is what I have always done,’ she said. ‘That is also what I did regarding the American military bases in Italy,’ she continued. Meloni stressed that her popularity is none of Trump’s business and suggested he focus on his own. ‘Italy remains a sovereign nation. In any case, my popularity is none of your business. I suggest you focus on your own popularity,’ she asserted. The heated relations between Meloni and Trump had earlier prompted Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to cancel his visit to the US. According to CNN and CNBC on Sunday (21/6/2026), Tajani was scheduled to depart for the US today to attend an Italy-US business forum in Miami. He had planned to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Tajani subsequently cancelled his travel plans to the US, calling Trump’s remarks ‘serious and offensive’ towards Meloni and all of Italy. Support for Meloni also came from Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Italian Transport Minister Matteo Salvini also condemned Trump’s attitude towards Meloni. ‘Whoever attacks @GiorgiaMeloni attacks us all,’ wrote Transport Minister Matteo Salvini. Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said he did not believe Meloni would ask anyone for a photo ‘even under threat’. Justice Minister Carlo Nordio also defended Meloni by invoking the sacrifice of US troops in World War II to underscore the damage Trump’s remarks have caused to US-Italy ties. ‘The thousands of crosses marking the graves of American soldiers who fell to liberate us from the Nazi-Fascist dictatorship do not deserve such a painful blow to our fraternal bond,’ Nordio said on X.