Italy's foreign minister cancels US trip amid Trump-Meloni rift
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani canceled a planned weekend trip to Miami — where he was due to attend a business forum and meet US Secretary of State Marco Rubio — after a public dispute between Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Donald Trump. Trump had claimed Meloni “begged” him for a photograph at the G7 summit in France; Meloni released a video calling the account “completely fabricated” and saying she was “frankly stunned.” Tajani called the remarks “serious and offensive,” and Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said such jokes “do no good” to either country or the alliance.
The friction matters because Meloni had been among Trump’s strongest backers in Europe, attending his 2025 inauguration and visiting Mar-a-Lago. Tensions have since built over Ukraine, the US–Iran conflict, Trump’s threats toward Greenland and his criticism of Pope Leo. A canceled ministerial visit is a modest but deliberate signal: it withdraws a scheduled engagement without formally escalating, leaving room to recover while registering displeasure. The White House had not responded by publication.