ROME—As President Trump’s rift with Europe widens, he is casting even his political friends into the chasm.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spent the past year trying to act as a bridge while Trump tussled with other European leaders over tariffs, Ukraine and Greenland.
Trump, who previously called Meloni a “great leader,” now says he is shocked by her refusal to send forces to help open the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Iran war. “I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” he told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera on Tuesday.
The abrupt breakdown of their political friendship shows how the middle ground is disappearing between a White House that is demanding loyalty from its allies and a Europe where voters and governments increasingly view the U.S. leader as a destabilizing force.
Meloni’s effort to hold the West together is laudable, former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti told The Wall Street Journal. “But this fails to take reality into account,” he said. Trump’s open hostility to the European Union makes it “difficult to act as a bridge.”
Ever-fewer European leaders now openly back Trump. On Sunday, he lost one of his closest allies, Hungary’s longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who suffered a crushing election defeat despite U.S. efforts to support him.
Some European leaders, such as Spain’s left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, have repudiated Trump’s foreign policy.
But in many cases Trump has reacted with anger or ridicule toward European leaders who have tried to win his ear, such as U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Now Meloni—a fellow right-winger whose views on immigration, gender and “woke ideology” are close to MAGA’s—finds herself dismissed by Trump as just another cowardly European leader whose country is being destroyed by immigration.
“Meloni has always been part of the pro-MAGA European political group. But from the start, it was clear that this would never develop into a privileged relationship, not because of Meloni but because of the character of Trump’s second administration,” said Teresa Coratella, a senior analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
“Trump does not view European member states as equals: He sees the entire bloc as a problem to be managed, and as an obstacle to his own policies. And Meloni is part of this European bloc,” said Coratella.
For over a year, Meloni has doggedly maintained a balancing act between the U.S. and Europe, playing down differences with Trump and insisting that the trans-Atlantic alliance is alive and well.
In January, when Trump threatened to seize the Danish territory of Greenland by force, she urged other European countries not to escalate or retaliate. Much of the region, however, is increasingly preparing for a divorce with the U.S.
The Iran war has tested Meloni’s Atlantic triangulation to the limit. The U.S.-Israeli campaign, which Trump says was necessary to stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons, is viewed across most of Europe’s political spectrum as ill-advised and damaging.
Italy, which relies heavily on gas imports from Gulf Arab countries, could face some of the worst economic fallout if the closure of the Strait of Hormuz persists.
“I fear that if the situation continues like this—on the energy front and fuel oils—a severe recession will follow,” Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti warned recently. Still, Meloni’s criticism has remained muted.
Her perceived closeness to Trump contributed to the defeat in a referendum last month of her proposals to overhaul Italy’s judiciary, according to some political analysts.
The breaking point came this week after Trump lashed out at Pope Leo for his antiwar sermons. Meloni, reluctant to pour fuel on the flames, at first endorsed Leo’s advocacy for peace without mentioning Trump. But as outrage mounted in Italy, home to the papacy, she said she needed to clarify that she had found Trump’s words “unacceptable.”
“She’s unacceptable,” Trump shot back. Their relationship is no longer the same, he told Fox News on Wednesday.
Meloni has avoided responding publicly. “When you’re friends and you have allies, especially if they’re strategic, you also have to have the courage to say when you disagree,” she said at a wine fair in Verona before Trump’s comments.
“Until today President Trump has considered Giorgia Meloni a courageous person, determined and attentive to the good of Italy,” her defense minister and close ally Guido Crosetto posted on X. “And it is true.”
Her government is sticking to its course. “The bond between Italy and the United States is not in question, just as the solidity of the alliance is not in question,” said Crosetto.
Trump himself is questioning the alliance, repeating his view on Tuesday that “NATO is a paper tiger.”
Some Italian officials admit Meloni has had little to show for her long investment in Trump’s friendship. Last year, her government successfully persuaded Washington not to slap heavy tariffs on Italian pasta. She also won Trump’s approval for a prisoner swap that freed an Italian journalist held in Iran in exchange for an Iranian businessman arrested in Italy and wanted by the U.S. Beyond that, there is little else.
Closeness to Trump “has not benefited Italy, much less the Meloni government,” said former Premier Monti, now a member of Italy’s Senate.
Meloni’s strategy has broken down on both shores of the Atlantic, said Coratella. “She has lost Trump’s favor and has been left completely isolated in Europe.”
Write to Marcus Walker at Marcus.Walker@wsj.com and Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com