Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni traveled to Mar-a-Lago to visit President-elect Donald J. Trump for an informal meeting on Saturday, three people familiar with the trip said.
The trip comes just days before Meloni welcomes President Biden to Rome for an official visit to Italy and the Vatican from January 9 to 12.
Meloni and Trump have expressed mutual appreciation in the past, and her trip is one of the first visits by a foreign leader to the president-elect’s Florida estate since his election. The meeting strengthens the hopes of Meloni’s supporters that the conservative Italian prime minister will become Trump’s go-to ally in Europe.
Much of that role would involve mediating tensions between other European leaders and Trump, who has threatened to start a trade war with the continent and reduce American support for some NATO countries and Ukraine in its war with Russia .
The agenda of the meeting Saturday night was unclear, but observers expected the two leaders would discuss these issues.
Another possible topic, according to observers, is the detention in Iran of a well-known Italian journalist, Cecilia Sala. It happened a few days after Italy arrested, at the request of the United States, an Iranian suspected of supplying drone components to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Iran has regularly detained foreigners and dual citizens to exchange them for money and people.
A person briefed on the meeting said Meloni had aggressively pushed for this to happen.
He also has a good relationship with Elon Musk, which his supporters hope will strengthen his international standing once Trump becomes president.
Since being elected, Trump has welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a champion of “illiberal democracy,” as well as Argentina’s right-wing president, Javier Milei, to Mar-a-Lago. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the first Group of Seven leader to visit Trump in Florida after the election, after he threatened to impose tariffs on Canada.
Maggie Habermann contributed to the reporting.