Georgia Meloni visits Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

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Giorgia Meloni dined with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago Golf Club on Saturday as the Italian prime minister looked to strengthen ties with the US president-elect ahead of his inauguration.

of Italian US President Joe Biden is going to visit Rome and the Vatican on his last overseas trip before leaving office.

“This is very exciting – I’m here with the prime minister of Italy,” Trump told the audience at Mar-a-Lago. “She’s really taken Europe and everyone else by storm, and we’re having dinner tonight.

Watermelon She has not made any public comments or her office has released any statements about her trip.

She was an admirer of Trump during her first term – when she was still a fringe opponent – and has recently become close friends with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Trump adviser.

Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of state, was in attendance at Mar-a-Lago, calling Meloni a “great partner, a strong leader.”

Members of Meloni’s right-wing King Brothers of Italy party hope the two leaders’ ideological affinity will help her become Trump’s key European foe. The president-elect expressed his enthusiasm for the Italian leader, who they met in Paris last month at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Meloni is one of the few foreign leaders to travel to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump after his re-election and before his Jan. 20 inauguration. Right-wing Trump allies Viktor Orbán of Hungary and Javier Mille of Argentina both visited. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made an emergency visit after Trump threatened to slap Canada with 25 percent import tariffs.

Meloni’s trip comes as she faces her toughest diplomatic challenge since taking office, following her arrest in Iran amid domestic political protests. Italian journalist Cecilia Sala.

Salah, who was in Iran on a legal journalist visa, was arrested days after Italy arrested an Iranian engineer and businessman wanted by the US for allegedly exporting the drone technology used to kill three US soldiers in Jordan a year ago.

The Italian journalist told her family that she was held in solitary confinement in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, sleeping on the floor, with the lights on at all hours.

Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported that Sala was arrested for “violating the laws of the Islamic Republic,” without giving further details.

However, the Iranian embassy in Rome has linked Salah’s arrest to Italy’s December 16, 2010 arrest of engineer Mohammad Abedini, demanding Tehran’s expedited release.

Abedini, who is now in prison in Milan, is wanted in the United States for trial on various criminal charges for “sending sophisticated electronic equipment from the United States to Iran illegally,” according to the United States Department of Justice.

Tehran has warned that Rome will damage bilateral relations if its citizen is extradited to the US. Abedini will appear in an Italian court on January 15, where his lawyer will beg to be released from prison and placed under house arrest.

The United States Department of Justice has warned Rome against such a move. Escape from Italian house arrest.

Salah is not the only issue to test Rome’s relationship with Washington after Trump returns to the White House later this month.

Businesses fear the Italian economy could be hit hard if Trump follows through on his promise to impose steep tariffs on imports. Rome falls well short of NATO’s commitment to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense — a key focus for Trump, who wants Europe to pay for its own security spending.

Additional reporting by Giuliana Ricozzi in Rome