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The US president says he is \u2018shocked at her\u2019, delivering a blunt public rebuke to one of his closest European allies.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Published On 15 Apr 2026<\/span>15 Apr 2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n United States President Donald Trump has attacked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of his main European allies, over her unwillingness to join the war on Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,\u201d he said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n The interview was published the day after Meloni condemned as \u201cunacceptable\u201d Trump\u2019s criticism of Pope Leo XIV, following the pontiff\u2019s repeated calls for an end to the war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s unacceptable because she doesn\u2019t mind that Iran has a nuclear weapon and would blow up Italy in two minutes if they had the chance,\u201d Trump said in English.<\/p>\n Meloni, Italy\u2019s leader since October 2022, used to be one of Trump\u2019s closest allies in Europe and often sought to act as a mediator between diverging US and European views.<\/p>\n But the president said they had not spoken this month, \u201cnot in a long time\u201d, saying: \u201cShe doesn\u2019t help us with NATO.<\/p>\n \u201cShe doesn\u2019t want to help get rid of a nuclear-weaponed Iran. Very sad \u2026 She\u2019s much different than I thought,\u201d Trump added.<\/p>\n He described the NATO military alliance as a \u201cpaper tiger\u201d and criticised Europe, in general, for not being \u201cwilling to fight for the Hormuz Strait, which is where they get their energy\u201d.<\/p>\n Trump said Meloni was \u201cnot the same person. Italy is not the same country. Immigration is killing Italy and all of Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n The Italian prime minister\u2019s allies and political opponents were swift to offer their support.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are and remain staunch supporters of Western unity and steadfast allies of the United States, but this unity is built on mutual loyalty, respect, and honesty,\u201d Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on X.<\/p>\n He said that until now, Trump considered Meloni a courageous person, and \u201che was not mistaken, but she is a woman who never shies away from saying what she thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n Elly Schlein, leader of the centre-left Democratic Party, condemned Trump\u2019s \u201cserious lack of respect\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cOur constitution is clear \u2013 Italy repudiates war,\u201d she added in parliament.<\/p>\n Separately on Tuesday, Italy suspended a defence agreement with Israel that involves the exchange of military equipment and technology research.<\/p>\n \u201cIn view of the current situation, the government has decided to suspend the automatic renewal of the defence agreement with Israel,\u201d Meloni said, according to Italian media.<\/p>\n Tensions between Italy and Israel have been high after the Italian government accused Israeli forces of firing warning shots at a convoy of Italian peacekeepers in Lebanon last week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The US president says he is \u2018shocked at her\u2019, delivering a blunt public rebuke to one of his closest European allies. Published On 15 Apr 202615 Apr 2026 United States President Donald Trump has attacked Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of his main European allies, over her unwillingness to join the war on Iran. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Local support for Meloni<\/h2>\n
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