What is so special about the much-trumpeted special relationship between Washington and Rome, or more precisely between Trump and Meloni? Exaggerated mutual compliments, the usual hyperbole of the American braggart that the prime minister likes to believe are exclusive to her. But: Where’s the beef, as Walter Mondale memorably asked challenger Gary Hart during a presidential debate in 1984, knocking him out: dov’è la ciccia? they would say in Garbatella. There have been allusions to an upcoming visit to Italy by Trump. A probable “window” that is being talked about is the wedding of the Bezos couple in Venice, which, at the end of June, will see the big names of the new America present in the city of the Doges. There is nothing more than this if you look closely. But it is enough to fuel the fable of Meloni as the underdog who has entered the inner circle of the world’s number one, in the role of “whisperer”, as The Guardian writes.
The meeting with Trump in Washington was in fact seen, in American analyses, as more of a personal/political relationship than as a diplomatic relationship between states.
Seen from the other side of the Atlantic, the special relationship with Rome has a feature in common with Washington’s historical special relationship with London: the underlying and permanent policy aimed at keeping alive the ever-present but gradually latent conflict between parts of Europe which regained strength with Boris Johnson and reached its peak with the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. Since then, the Anglosphere project has faded, and the next big exit, the one destined to go down in history (if it ever succeeds), is being implemented by Trump: the exit from international organizations, even from NATO. In reality, the US is withdrawing the international community itself as we have understood it since the post-war period onwards, to build a new one, Trump’s own, founded on the ideological bases that have characterized his political trajectory for over ten years now, and has earned him proselytes in the West and beyond. His plan is still confused and has undefined contours, however the objective of dismantling the European edifice and creating a network of two-way relations with the command center in the Oval Office is clear.
The Italian Prime Minister, raised in the political “school” of Berlusconi, who wanted her in his government when she was thirty, Meloni knows how to please and get in tune with the personality, whims, and tics of the powerful billionaire in charge. And she has gone straight to the topic that is at the heart of the Trumpist insurrection. Do they praise her for her perfect English? Yet here is the big slip on the acronym – DEI – that has fueled the right-wing rhetoric of hatred for years, which she mistakenly calls ADI: “the fight against the woke and the ADI (sic) ideology that would like to erase our history”. Diversity, equity and inclusion, the DEI that Trump is intent on undermining, in universities, in public administration, everywhere. Meloni, as much as she can, gives him a hand, even by inventing bizarre slogans that no one understands, least of all Trump, like Make the West Great Again within a framework of “Western nationalism” – God only knows what that is.
It is useless to look for traces of the meeting on the front pages of the main American newspapers. There’s a news photo in the Wall Street Journal, brief references elsewhere. On the other hand, if Meloni played the American game with an eye on Italy, Trump, as is customary for all American presidents, also used this meeting to address his public and his domestic objectives, obviously with a massive dose of egotism. The presence of a friendly European leader at his side served to underline that he is not against Europe per se, but against the Europe that is aligned with democratic America and substantially shares its values and aspirations. Further developments of the special relationship will occur along this ideological line, inevitably on a collision course with democratic Europe. Trump has tested the real willingness of his Italian friend to expose herself at his side. The test has been passed with flying colors, as suggested by the words following the meeting radiated by his social Truth: “the impression she left on everyone was fantastic!!!”.
A respected Japanese politician, Shinji Oguma, commenting on the recent meeting of the economic minister Akazawa Ryoseisel with Trump himself and his American counterparts about the tariff dossier, said that “if Japan negotiates with what [Trump] is saying, it is like being extorted by a criminal. If you give money to someone who extorts you, he will come back to extort you again”. With Meloni it is not about money – tariffs and duties – but ideological and moral support. Trump will demand more of it from his friends and supporters when the going gets tougher, in the United States and around the world, and probably soon.
L’articolo The “Whisperer” in America proviene da ytali..
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