Italy's Tajani: Trump's remarks to not affect US-Italy relations

Italy's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on July 6 that recent remarks by U.S. President Donald Trump targeting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni would not affect relations between Italy and the United States.

Trump's latest criticism came in a post on his Truth Social platform, where he shared a photograph of Meloni looking at him with the words "Restraining Order Needed" written above it, Caliber.Az reports.

Speaking to Sky TG24, Tajani dismissed the comments, saying the Italian government would not respond to such statements.

"These statements speak for themselves," Tajani told Sky Tg24. "From the very beginning [of the spat between Trump and Meloni] we said that we would not respond to statements of this kind, so let's move on.

Tajani stressed that relations between Italy and the United States extend far beyond individual public statements. He described the United States as Italy's strategic partner and, together with Europe, a central pillar of the Western alliance.

"We are friends with the United States, which is a strategic partner and, along with Europe, the most important part of the West—and that is what matters to us. Relations with the United States are fundamental from every perspective—commercial, political, and strategic," he said. 

He added that Italy had maintained strong alliances with the United States under successive American administrations, including those of Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden, and said the government would continue to strengthen those important political relations regardless of isolated remarks.

By Sabina Mammadli