Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy. Reuters Yonhap News
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is considered a friendly European leader with U.S. President Donald Trump, also expressed concern about the U.S.’s policy of additional tariffs to push forward the plan to annex Greenland.
According to the AFP news agency on the 18th (local time), Prime Minister Meloni mentioned the additional tariffs imposed by the United States on the eight European countries that dispatched troops to Greenland during his visit to Korea and said, “I think it is a mistake to impose new sanctions.” He continued, “I spoke to President Trump a few hours ago and conveyed my thoughts.”
President Trump announced the day before that he would impose additional tariffs of 10% from the 1st of next month and 25% from June 1 on the eight countries, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, that have dispatched troops to Greenland to check the United States’ plan to annex Greenland. Italy, which opposed the deployment of troops, is not subject to tariffs, but if additional tariffs become a reality, the entire European Union (EU) economic bloc, including Italy, is expected to be affected.
Prime Minister Meloni said he also spoke on the phone with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary-General Mark Rutte and said, “NATO has begun resolving this issue.” At the same time, he said, “There were problems of understanding and communication” surrounding Greenland between the U.S. and Europe, and “the message from the other side of the Atlantic (Europe) was not clear from the U.S. perspective.”
Prime Minister Meloni went on to say, “There was a risk that the European countries’ (troop deployment) actions could be interpreted as anti-American, which was clearly not their intention. NATO must work together to build deterrence against potentially hostile intervention in a strategically important region. The fact that NATO has taken up this issue is a good start.”
Prime Minister Meloni is known to have the closest relationship with President Trump in major European countries. He was also the only European leader to attend President Trump’s inauguration ceremony in January last year. When President Trump announced the ‘Greenland tariff‘ policy the day before, the EU and European countries protested in unison, increasing tensions between the two sides.
