Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused Donald Trump of fabricating a story that she “begged” him for a photograph at this week’s G7 summit, triggering a diplomatic row that saw Italy’s foreign minister cancel a planned trip to the United States.
The incident is the latest and most public rupture in what was once a close relationship between two right-wing leaders. But the way Trump chose to tell the story, casting a female ally as a supplicant who needed his pity, has struck a nerve in Rome and beyond. It fits a pattern.
What Trump said
In a phone interview with Italy’s La7 television on Friday, Trump was asked about Ukraine but steered the conversation to Meloni. According to La7, which aired a dubbed version without the original English audio, Trump said Meloni had “begged” him for a photo-op at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France. He said he was not obliged to do it but that he “felt sorry for her” and agreed.
“She’s probably happy I spoke to her,” he added.
Meloni did not wait long to respond. In a video posted to her seven million Instagram followers, she looked genuinely taken aback.
“I am frankly stunned,” she said. “I don’t know why the US president behaves this way towards allies.”
Then she delivered the line that will likely define the episode: “But there is one thing he needs to remember. Neither I nor Italy ever beg.”
Italy closes ranks
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani immediately canceled a planned trip to the United States this weekend. He called Trump’s claims “serious and offensive,” toward Meloni personally and toward Italy as a nation. The business and scientific forum he was to attend in Miami was also called off.
The reaction was swift and bipartisan. President Sergio Mattarella, Italy’s respected head of state, phoned Meloni to offer his support. Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, not always an ally, posted: “Whoever attacks Giorgia Meloni attacks all of us.” Justice Minister Carlo Nordio invoked the American war dead buried in Italy. “The thousands of crosses marking the graves of American soldiers who died to free us from Nazi-Fascist dictatorship did not deserve such a painful blow to our fraternal ties,” he said. Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Meloni would never beg for a photo, “not even under threat.”
From the opposition, Five Star Movement leader Giuseppe Conte said Italy did not deserve such humiliation, and that chasing favor with Washington should never come at the expense of national dignity.
The gender dimension
This is not the first time Trump has gone after Meloni. In April, he told Italy’s Corriere della Sera: “I thought she had courage, but I was wrong.” When Trump called Pope Leo XIV “weak on crime and terrible on foreign policy,” Meloni said those remarks were unacceptable.
But the “begged” story is different. The language is telling. Trump described a female head of government as someone who came to him asking for a favor, someone he pitied enough to grant a photo. The frame is not negotiation between equals. It is a benefactor humoring a supplicant.
Compare that with how Trump talks about male leaders. He boasts about his relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron, most recently hosting him at a Versailles dinner. He speaks of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as counterparts. Difficult, sometimes adversarial, but never as objects of pity. Even with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump has praised extensively, the framing is transactional and respectful, not paternalistic.
Meloni herself hinted at the disparity in her Instagram response. She said it was “regrettable” that Trump does not show “the same determination towards the enemies of the West” that he shows toward allies. But there is a deeper pattern: Trump reserves a particular kind of condescension for women in power. The claim that a female leader “begged” him for a photograph, and that he granted it out of pity, is consistent with a long record of treating women as less authoritative, less serious, less worthy of equal treatment.
Meloni was the only European leader to attend Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Her allies in Brussels saw her as a potential bridge to a difficult White House. That bridge now appears badly damaged. Not by a policy disagreement, but by a story the president of the United States seems to have invented about a woman who would not bow.