Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy visited President-elect Donald J. Trump on Saturday at his Florida golf membership for an off-the-cuff assembly.
The journey, to Mar-a-Lago, comes just some days earlier than Ms. Meloni is ready to welcome President Biden in Rome for an official go to to Italy and the Vatican on Jan. 9 to 12.
On Saturday, she appeared within the grand ballroom. Mr. Trump, in keeping with pool studies, mentioned he was having dinner with Ms. Meloni, whom he known as “a incredible lady,” including, “She’s actually taken Europe by storm, and everybody else.”
They, together with some potential members of the long run Trump administration, together with the nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and for Treasury, Scott Bessent, then watched a screening of a movie titled “The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice.”
Ms. Meloni and Mr. Trump have expressed mutual appreciation up to now, and her journey is among the first few visits by a international chief to the president-elect’s property in Florida since his election. The assembly reinforces the hopes of Ms. Meloni’s supporters that the conservative Italian prime minister will turn out to be Mr. Trump’s go-to ally in Europe.
A lot of that function would contain mediating tensions between different European leaders and Mr. Trump, who has threatened to begin a commerce struggle with the continent in addition to to scale back American backing for some NATO nations and for Ukraine in its struggle with Russia.
The agenda of the assembly was unclear on Saturday night time, however observers anticipated the 2 leaders would talk about these points.
One other attainable matter, in keeping with observers, is the detention in Iran of a distinguished Italian reporter, Cecilia Sala. It occurred a number of days after Italy arrested, on the request of the USA, an Iranian suspected of offering drone parts to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iran has routinely detained foreigners and twin residents to commerce them for cash and other people.
One particular person briefed on the assembly mentioned Ms. Meloni had pressed aggressively for it.
She additionally has a great relationship with Elon Musk, which her supporters hope will bolster her worldwide standing as soon as Mr. Trump turns into president.
Since being elected, Mr. Trump has welcomed to Mar-a-Lago Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, a champion of “intolerant democracy,” in addition to Argentina’s firebrand right-wing president, Javier Milei. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada grew to become the primary Group of Seven chief to go to Mr. Trump in Florida because the election, after a menace to impose tariffs on Canada.
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
