Italian Prime Minister Meloni met with Trump at a Florida resort

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni flew to Florida on Saturday to meet with President-elect Donald Trump.

Members of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort greeted Meloni with applause after being introduced by the president, videos shared by reporters and others on social media showed.

Her trip comes days before she will meet US President Joe Biden during his visit to Rome from Thursday to January 12. Trump is preparing to defeat Biden in the November election and return to the White House.

Italian media reported that Meloni planned to discuss with Trump Russia’s war in Ukraine, trade issues, the Middle East and the situation of an Italian journalist imprisoned in Tehran, although the details of their meeting were not disclosed.

Maloney’s office declined to comment on the reports.

She is seen as a strong ally for Trump because of her conservative credentials and the stability of the Italian-led right-wing coalition. He has developed a close relationship with billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping him win the election.

“This is very exciting. I’m here with a wonderful woman who is the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the Mar-a-Lago crowd, according to a media pool report. “She really took Europe by storm.”

Trump and Meloni sat down to watch a documentary by John Eastman that called for a criminal and legal investigation into Trump’s failed attempt to reverse his 2020 election loss.

One of the biggest challenges facing Meloni is the arrest of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala in Iran on December 19.

Salah’s arrest comes three days after Mohammad Abedini, an Iranian businessman, was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport on a U.S. warrant that Washington provided a drone it says was used in a 2023 attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. service members. Iran has denied any involvement in the attack.

On Friday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Italian ambassador over Abedini’s arrest, Iranian state media reported.

Meloni is the latest of a handful of foreign leaders to visit Trump in Florida after the Nov. 5 election. He met with Argentine President Javier Millay, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.