Italy PM Meloni: Trump White House is Criticising Europe’s Ruling Class, Not Its People

Italy’s conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warns that many European leaders are being too “instinctive” in their responses to President Donald Trump, never stopping to think whether he may have a point when he speaks.

Giorgia Meloni, the only European government leader invited to the inauguration of President Donald Trump this year, warns her fellow leaders on the continent are failing to be pragmatic and serve their nations’ best interests when interacting with the U.S.. Further, while many react with outrage if not horror when the Trump White House criticises Europe, there is never time to reflect on what truths those comments contain.

Vice President JD Vance, who has been something of an emissary to Europe from President Trump, has been very critical of European member states at times, pointing to their backsliding on freedom of speech and democracy. While EU nations generally consider themselves the global guardians of these virtues, in fact the continent has become markedly more censorious of late, and legacy political parties have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep newcomers and populists out of power, no matter their levels of popular support.

PM Meloni responded to these remarks of the Vice President in comments to Britain’s Financial Times, a rare interview with a non-Italian newspaper, and said the remarks had been misunderstood by most, and should not be dismissed. She told the paper: “I have to say I agree… I’ve been saying this for years . . . Europe has a bit lost itself.”

And regular Europeans shouldn’t feel affronted by Trump’s comments, she said, for they are not in his sights. Rather the “ruling class” and their approach to power which means rather than finding answers to the problems voters identify, they instead “impose” an ideology on them, is what the Trump White House criticises.

European leaders, Meloni said, are “a bit too political” in their attitudes to Trump and aren’t pragmatic enough. She continued: “Sometimes I have the impression that we simply respond instinctively… In these topics you have to say, ‘Keep calm, guys. Let’s think’.” This is simply a matter of defending national interests, she said.

While the media and non-government politicians remain in a 2017 mindset when it comes to President Trump’s second term, those parties in power in a handful of European countries have begun to take a more pragmatic approach to Trump and, in a small number of cases, even admit his White House can “have a point” on some issues. Denmark’s left-wing Prime Minister Mette Fredricksen, for instance, acknowledged JD Vance was onto something when he said in his famous Munich Security Conference speech that mass migration to Europe had become a serious security issue.

She said: “Security is also about what is going on in your local community… No matter if you look at statistics on crimes or if you look at problems on the labour market, insecurity in local communities, it is the most vulnerable who experience the consequences.”

In the United Kingdom, it is also a left-wing government willing to take U.S. criticism on the chin. Responding to alleged ‘Signal’ chat leaks of comments made by Vice President Vance and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about the European NATO states being pathetic freeloaders, the UK defence minister reflected: “The Americans have got a case, the Americans have absolutely got a case that on defence spending, on European security, on our support for Ukraine”.