Premier Giorgia Meloni paid a surprise
flying visit to United States President-elect Donald Trump at
his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Saturday.
Meloni, the leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI)
party, arrived in Florida at around 19:30 local time and flew
back to Rome less than five hours later.
"She's really taken Europe by storm," Trump said of Meloni
before a group of people at the residence, according to Wall
Street Journal reporter Alex Leary.
Incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio was also present and
called Meloni a "great ally, strong leader", Leary reported.
The war in Ukraine, gas supplies and possible new US tariffs on
EU goods were among the issues the leaders discussed, sources
said.
The New York Times reported that Meloni also pressed hard about
the case of Cecilia Sala, an Italian journalist arrested in
Iran, three days after an Iranian engineer Mohammad Abedini was
picked up at Milan's Malpensa airport on US charges of supplying
drone parts used to kill three servicemen in Jordan.
During the visit, Trump showed Meloni a documentary about
alleged fraud in the 2020 US presidential election.
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