MILAN — Vice President JD Vance met Friday with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — one of many Trump administration’s nearer allies in Europe — throughout his journey to Italy for the Olympic Video games.

Vance is on a weeklong go to that mixes sports activities and diplomacy, assembly with Meloni at a time when U.S. relations with Europe have turn out to be more and more strained beneath President Donald Trump, who has shaken up the rules-based order that has been on the middle of U.S. overseas coverage since World Warfare II.

The vice chairman began his day on the Milano Ice Skating Enviornment, watching the opening session of the three-day workforce determine skating competitors together with his household and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Vance then headed to the Prefettura di Milano, a Milan palace now used as a municipal constructing, for a bilateral assembly with Meloni that lasted about an hour and was adopted by a closed-door lunch.

Meloni started her remarks in Italian. After a second, she switched to English, joking that Vance in all probability didn’t perceive what she had been saying.

Vance quipped that he’d been in a position to study Italian since final coming to Italy. He hadn’t. His final go to was when he noticed Meloni in Rome after assembly with Pope Leo XIV in Could.

“I used to be saying that I’m glad to have you ever right here to have the event to speak about our fantastic bilateral relation,” Meloni stated.

The prime minister stated they’d focus on a number of matters of bilateral cooperation, but in addition talked about assembly on the Olympics, which she known as “occasions that inform about values that preserve collectively Italy and the U.S.” and “western civilization.”

Whereas Meloni was talking, Tilman Fertitta, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, walked in and greeted Vance, mentioning that, “It’s arduous to get round.” The safety measures concerned in staging the Olympics have meant visitors closures and different logistical complications.

Meloni has cultivated an in depth relationship with Trump, visiting him at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida in early January 2025, even earlier than he took workplace for his second time period. On the time, he known as her a “implausible lady” and the 2 have since praised one another.

Extra not too long ago, nonetheless, Meloni has sided with prime U.S. allies in Europe in opposing Trump’s push to take management of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.

In the course of the brief portion of the assembly the place reporters had been current, the 2 leaders solely exchanged pleasantries. Vance and Rubio didn’t reply shouted questions on talks between the U.S. and Iran.

“Within the spirit of the Olympics friendship, competitors — competitors primarily based on guidelines — and simply coming collectively round shared values, we’re very, very thrilled to be right here, and we’ll have a terrific dialog about variety of matters,” Vance instructed Meloni. He added that he’d been excited to go to the Olympics in Milan “just about since I grew to become vice chairman.”

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Weissert reported from Washington.