Milan – Italian Premier Georgia Meloni will test its intersection as a bridge between the EU and the United States while meeting US President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, since he announced the first European leader to face Trump, and then suspended 20% of European exports.
Meloni won the meeting at a critical moment in the trade war as Italy, but he too became “night” to represent the European Union in a sense. A commission spokesman said this week that he had contact with EU Commission president Ursula von der Leon and “The Outreach … is closely integrated”.
“We know we’re in a difficult moment,” Meloni said in Rome this week. “Of course, I know well what I represent and what I am protecting.”
The European Union called it “the world’s most important commercial relationship,” ‘annual trade reached 1.6 trillion euro ($ 1.8 trillion).
Trade discussions under the European Commission authorities, which are pressing for the zero-free tariff agreement with the United States, the Trump administration officials have not yet publicly showed the signs of Trump’s dependence on the European Union that a baseline should charge 10% on foreign imports. He paused at 20%of a revengeful increase for 90 days.
The break has raised some hope for the discussion, and the margins of Melloni’s progress are more than a completely discount, even more in terms of Trump’s goals, experts say.
“This is a very fine mission,” said Fabian Julig, chief economist at the European Policy Center of Brussels. “There is a whole trade agenda here and when he does not formally discuss we know that Trump likes to exchange this kind of informal, which is a discussion in one sense. So that’s a lot on his plate.”
As the leader of the far right party, the melody is ideally integrated with Trump on issues related to preventing meloni immigration, promoting the traditional values and promoting skepticism to the poly -friendly organization. However, there has been a complete difference in Meleoni’s support for Ukraine.
After becoming the only European leader to attend the inauguration of January 26, Meloni responded with restraint to the Trans-Atlantic alliance due to a sudden change in US policy under Trump. He has condemned the tariff as “wrong” and warned that after Trump’s heated White House with the President of Ukraine “sharing the West would be a catastrophic”.
“He was very careful,” said Wolfongo Picoli, an analyst for London -based Tenio consultant.
Italy has maintained a 40 billion euro trade surplus with the United States, the largest with any country, by Americans hungry by the Italian Sparkling Wine, Permigiano Regiono Hard Cheese and Perma Ham, and the Italian luxurious fashion. These are all sectors that are criticized for the Italian economy and mostly small and medium-sized producers who are supported by the main center-right voter.
“All in all, I think he will focus on the powerful economic and trade relations that will focus on Italy with the United States, not only for export, but also in the case of export,” said Antonio Vilafranka, Vice President of Milan’s ISPI Think Tank. “For example, Italy may even consider importing more gas from the United States”
The meeting comes against the background of growing anxiety regarding global uncertainty generated by the increasing tariff war. The forecast for Italy for this year has already dropped from 1% to 0.5%.
Melonio is also expected to resolve Trump’s demand to increase military spending by 2% of the military cost for NATO partners. Italy spending, at 1.49% of GDP, is in Europe’s lowest.
Experts, of course, warned against raising expectations of any scente progress.
Picolie said, “The best strategy was very transport: go there, get a meeting, get a chance,” said Picoli. “If he was able to come back and to understand how Washington wants to frame the future relationship in trade, defense and Ukraine policy, it would be a huge victory.”
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AP writer Lorne Cook in Brussels and Josh Bok of Washington contributed to this report.
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