Italy's Meloni to meet Trump amid U.S.- Europe trade tensions

By Angelo Amante

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is heading to the White House for a meeting on Thursday with President Donald Trump, seeking to ease tensions over U.S. tariffs on European goods and position herself as a bridge between Washington and Brussels.

Meloni is walking a tightrope between her ideological affinity to the president and her ties with European allies, who have criticised Trump's tariff hikes and his decision to exclude the EU from talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

While Meloni is under pressure at home to protect Italy's export-driven economy, which last year ran a 40 billion euro ($45.4 billion) trade surplus with the U.S., she must also be seen to defend the interests of the whole 27-nation EU bloc.

French government ministers have warned that the nationalist Italian leader might undermine EU unity by going alone to Washington, but the European Commission, which has responsibility for negotiating trade accords, has welcomed Meloni's trip.

Trump's abrupt decision last week to pause most global tariffs for 90 days has relieved some of the pressure on Meloni, meaning that she won't feel the need to return with a deal, but rather to create the right environment for an accord.

"She is no longer travelling amid an open clash involving the EU. She is going as a de facto mediator," said Lorenzo Castellani, a political analyst at Luiss University in Rome.

ROME'S AMBITIONS

Meloni was the only EU leader invited to Trump's inauguration in January and this week's meeting will take place the day before she hosts Vice President JD Vance in Rome -- back-to-back talks that could be crucial to furthering Italian ambitions to play a pivotal role in transatlantic relations.

"If she facilitates negotiations with Trump without penalising Europe, she will emerge much stronger," said Castellani.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has so far not been granted an audience with Trump, meaning that she has to rely on others to promote EU interests.

A Commission spokesperson said Meloni and von der Leyen had been in regular contact ahead of the White House meeting.

Both leaders have called for all of Trump's so-called reciprocal tariffs to be scrapped for the EU, and Meloni is expected to push for a "zero-for-zero" deal on industrial tariffs between the two sides.

    French officials fear Trump is seeking to divide and conquer Europe, and worry Meloni could play into his hands.

    "We need to be united because Europe is strong if it's united," Marc Ferracci, the French minister for industry and energy, told FranceInfo radio. "If we start having bilateral talks, of course it'll break this momentum."

CHINA

While Trump has frozen many tariffs, he has maintained a wall of levies on China and some analysts say this might bring China and Europe closer together.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing last week, and urged greater engagement with China in order to defend globalisation and to oppose "unilateral acts of bullying".

Rome has distanced itself from his comments.

"The great clash underway is not between the U.S. and Europe, but between the U.S. and China," Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told Reuters in an interview.

Trump and Meloni may also discuss defence and Castellani said Meloni might promise to hike defence spending in future.

Italy's defence budget was 1.49% of GDP last year even as Trump is pushing NATO allies to lift military spending to 5% of GDP.

($1 = 0.8814 euros)

(Additional reporting by Michel Rose in Paris and Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Crispian Balmer and Frances Kerry)