Donald Trump is “still considering” moving American troops from Italian bases. The president of the United States himself said this in a phone call with Corriere della Sera journalist Viviana Mazza. “Italy wasn’t there when we needed her. And I have always been there for Italy, and so my country”, reiterated Trump after the visit to Rome by the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. “Italy was not there when we needed it”, he insisted when pressed on the hypothesis that Italy could make minesweepers available once a ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran has been concluded. Asked why he posted an article by Salvini in Truth in recent days, the President of the United States replied: “Because I thought it was appropriate.”
Yesterday the Meloni-Rubio meeting
Yesterday at Palazzo Chigi in over an hour and a half of conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attempted to reconnect the threads of the historic transatlantic relationship put into crisis by the latest tensions with Trump, who in recent weeks has already criticized Italy’s position in relation to the crisis in the Middle East. “A frank dialogue, between allies who defend their national interests but who both know how precious the unity of the West is”, summarized Meloni at the end of the face-to-face meeting, speaking of “certainly a profitable and constructive meeting”. “We both understand how important the transatlantic relationship is, but we both equally understand – he reiterated – how important it is necessary for everyone to defend their national interests“. And therefore, “Italy defends its national interests exactly as the United States does. And it’s good that we agree on this.”
Crosetto: “Relationships are between peoples”
“Our relationship with the United States is deep and perennial”, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto reiterated today in Genoa, from the stage of the ceremony for the departure of the Amerigo Vespucci training ship, speaking of the relationship between the two countries. “I am happy – said the minister – to be able to be in New York on July 4th to celebrate 250 years of independence with the United States. It is a moment in which it seems that relations between Italy and the United States are not good. We remember that relationships are between peoples“, Crosetto highlighted.
Relationships don’t change in a year or two, they don’t change with a sentence, they don’t change with a joke – he added -. And when I think of the United States, I think neither of Trump, nor of Obama, nor of Biden, nor of Bush”. “I think of the crosses of American soldiers, with which Italy is dotted – Crosetto recalled -. The young Americans who came here, without even knowing where Italy was, died here and are buried here. And those bonds cannot be erased. That debt of gratitude cannot be erased in the minds and souls of men with a capital U. That is what we defend as the heritage of the armed forces, those values, that history, that dignity.”