At the age of 31, Georgia Meloni was the youngest minister in the Italian government under former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. She was a young woman working in an alpha-male--dominated government led by Berlusconi's conservative Forza Italia party.
The late Berlusconi was known for his unpredictable behavior, rhetorical arrogance and willingness to take on the Italian judiciary and other left-wing public institutions in Italy. He was the closest personality and politician to Donald Trump that we have seen in modern Europe, and Meloni had a front-row seat to the never-ending political chaos of the Berlusconi era in Italian politics.
Meloni incrementally moved away from the traditional conservatism of Forza Italia, elevating her populist Brothers of Italy Party to 30 percent support after only two and a half years in government. She has managed to dramatically increase that support with her “common-sense” no-nonsense governing style wed to an anti-immigration populism that is assertively committed to defending traditional marriage, the Catholic Church and Italy's fundamental right to remain “Italian.”
Meloni was attracted to right-wing political activism at an early age, having joined the Youth Front, the youth branch of Movimento Sociale Italiano, when she was only 15 years old. The movement was founded by former fascists after World War II in response to an increasingly violent left-wing counterculture youth movement sweeping across Italy at the time.
Meloni seemed determined, even at a young age, to establish legitimacy for right-wing populist politics that had always eluded other European right-wing populist movements.
With this background, Prime Minister Meloni has increasingly acted as a bridge between President Trump and America’s European allies. Having learned under the mentorship of Berlusconi, Meloni understands how to deal with strong and unpredictable leaders.
While other European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron of France and newly elected German Chancellor Friedrich Merz are strong supporters of the EU, free trade and international public institutions, Meloni is skeptical of all three. She and often pushes back against European economic and multicultural integration.
She is determined to protect Italian industry, culture and, most importantly, Italy's shores from an influx of illegal migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. These positions closely align Meloni with Trump’s populist policy agenda. There's a reason Trump has called Meloni one of his favorite European leaders.
Trump also likes Meloni’s pragmatism toward Russia, Ukraine and Gaza. Although she has supported sanctions against Russia and has publicly criticized Vladimir Putin, she has also called for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. She has been skeptical of Europe's plan to use European ground troops as a peacekeeping force after a cease-fire has been reached in that conflict.
Meloni’s support for Ukraine, which has surprised many of her governing coalition partners, is based on her strong belief in "national sovereignty," a recurring theme for Meloni when she defends Italian interests from intrusive EU bureaucrats and regulators.
Trump has also never forgotten how Meloni maintained a close ...
