Donald Trump has sparked an international spat with Italy, after he was accused of “serious and offensive” remarks about prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
Deputy prime minister Antonio Tajani cancelled a scheduled trip to the US over the comments claiming that they “offend all of Italy”.
The bizarre dispute appears to started with claims Meloni wanted to take a picture with the US leader, before spiralling into personal attacks shared on social media.
But this is far from the first time that Trump has rubbed world leaders the wrong way.
The American president has spent much of his second term in office criticising allies like Nato and the European Union on a range of issues from a perceived lack of military support, defence spending, his designs on Greenland and tariffs.
Below we look at some of Trump’s high-profile clashes with Europe’s leaders during his second term in office.
According to a transcript by Italian channel La7, Trump is reported to have said that Meloni “wanted a picture with me so badly” and that he agreed only because he “felt sorry for her” when the pair met at the G7 summit in the French Alps this week.
He is also reported to have said that the Italian prime minister may be “happy that I talked to her, I didn’t have to talk to her”.
Meloni response was that Trump’s account was “made up”, adding: “Neither I nor Italy ever beg”.
“I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves this way with his own allies,” the right-wing leader said in a video posted on X in response to the report.
“I can only say that it’s a pity he doesn’t show the same determination with enemies of the West, with enemies of the United States, with leaders with whom, instead, he is far more accommodating.”
Trump doubled down on Saturday, claiming Meloni “wanted to be friends to get her numbers up”, referring to her polling.
“Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with me during the G-7 meeting in France,@ the president posted on Truth Social.
“She is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity, possibly because she turned down the United States of America, a Country that truly loves and protects Italy, when it came to denying Iran from obtaining or developing a Nuclear Weapon (But so did NATO, for that matter!).”
The pair had appeared cordial at the meeting in France but it is not the first time that the US leader has made headline-grabbing remarks about Meloni.
“We have a woman – a young woman who is… I’m not allowed to say it because usually it’s the end of your political career if you say it,” he said at a peace summit in Egypt in October. “She’s a beautiful young woman.”
Trump has a long history of tensions with French president Emmanuel Macron. When the pair first met in 2017, they held each other’s hands so firmly and for so long that the exchange was dubbed the “handshake wars” by media.
Despite a brief period of cordiality branded “le bromance” by commentators, the good feelings quickly fizzled. Macron called Trump’s “America First” policy “insane” and Nato being “brain dead” for withdrawing US troops from Syria.
Trump hit out at the comments as “very, very nasty”, “insulting” and “disrespectful”. He later toned this down by saying that the US and France had “done a lot of good things together as partners.”
Earlier this year, he mocked the French leader’s “beautiful sunglasses” when Macron sported eye-catching aviators at the Davos conference, asking: “What the hell happened?”
Weeks later Trump mocked Macron in perhaps his lowest blow yet, by saying he is treated “extremely badly” by his wife Brigitte.
“I called up France, Macron, whose wife treats him extremely badly and he’s still recovering from the right to the jaw,” Trump said, seemingly referring to Macron being pushed in the face by his wife during an incident on a plane in Vietnam. The French president said that the comments were neither “elegant” nor “up to standard”.
Later, Macron said in response to questions about the Iran war: “This is not a show. We are talking about war and peace and the lives of men and women,” on a state visit to South Korea.
“When you want to be serious you don’t say every day the opposite of what you said the day before. And maybe you shouldn’t be speaking every day. You should just let things quieten down.”
The pair’s rollercoaster relationship appeared to have been on more amicable terms this week, however, as Trump made a visit to the palace of Versailles after the G7 summit.
