By Cleve R. Wootson Jr. · The Washington Post (c) 2025
President Donald Trump said Thursday that he’s “100 percent” sure the United States will make a trade deal with the European Union, offering hope that he would ease new tariffs he imposed earlier this month.
Trump made the remarks near the beginning of a bilateral meeting with the prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, the first European leader to visit the White House since Trump rolled out a raft of tariffs that threaten to upend the global economy.
“Of course there will be a trade deal,” Trump told reporters before the meeting began. “They want to make one very much. And we’re going to make a trade deal. I fully expect it, but it will be a fair deal.”
Later, he said, “We’re going to have very little problem making a deal with Europe or anyone else, because we have something everybody else wants.”
Leaders on both sides of the Atlantic see Meloni as the best hope for persuading the president to back down on steep tariffs on the 27 members of the E.U. and dozens of other countries.
Trump has a more amicable relationship with Meloni than with most of her European counterparts, and the pair hold similar ideological views. Meloni heads a far-right coalition that is Italy’s most right-wing government since the authoritarian regime of Benito Mussolini was overthrown in 1943.
Trump has described her as a “wonderful woman” and “a real live wire,” has hosted her at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and invited her to his inauguration. As president-elect, Trump pulled Meloni aside during a Dec. 7 visit to a rebuilt Notre Dame cathedral, his first, though unofficial, leader-to-leader engagement.
In a video message to the Conservative Political Action Conference this year, Meloni railed against “globalist elites” and “the virus of cancel culture and woke ideologies,” saying that conservative values are really Western values – and that like-minded Westerners across the globe should fight for them.
Trump sees Meloni as “a key force in Europe and a voice that largely sees eye-to-eye with the president on a lot of issues, like immigration and the need to end the war in Ukraine,” a senior administration official told reporters during a call with reporters in advance of the meeting between the leaders. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity, per the rules of the call. “I think she’s increasingly playing that role in the European Union. I think a lot of other states are grateful for her leadership in that venue, and we certainly see her as a valuable interlocutor with the E.U.”
Still, Meloni is trying to balance improving transcontinental trade relations with staying in Trump’s good graces. And it remains unclear what Trump easing the tariffs on European Union would look like.
On Thursday, Meloni invited Trump to Italy for an official visit and suggested that Italy could serve as the location for detailed talks with other European leaders, but she skirted a question about whether the E.U. would continue to keep the threat of retaliatory tariffs on the table.
“I’m sure we can make a deal,” Meloni said. “And I’m here to help on that. I cannot [make a] deal in the name of the European Union.”
This month, Trump imposed what the White House has called “reciprocal” U.S. tariffs on dozens of countries, including 20 percent on the European Union. Trump quickly paused many of the new tariffs amid economic paroxysms but left in place a still-significant 10 percent tariff on European imports to the U.S. Leaders in the E.U. hope the three-month freeze on the higher 20 percent rate presents an opportunity to negotiate – with Meloni at the tip of the spear.
Trump has bragged that dozens of global leaders – including members of a Japanese delegation in Washington on Wednesday – have been trying to strike new trade deals with him. During the bilateral meeting, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he believed “there have been calls with the E.U. already.”
Meloni has criticized Trump’s tariffs but also cautioned Europe against getting involved in an escalating trade war, and she told a group of Italian business leaders on Tuesday that she was levelheaded about the task in front of her. After visiting the White House, Meloni will head back to Italy to play host to Vice President JD Vance.
“We’ll do our best, as always,” she said Tuesday. “Surely I’m aware of what I represent, and I’m aware of what I’m safeguarding.”
Trump has routinely castigated the E.U. as a part of a global order that’s intended to subvert the economic interests of the United States. “Look, let’s be honest, the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States,” Trump told reporters during the first meeting of his Cabinet. “That’s the purpose of it, and they’ve done a good job of it. But now I’m president.”
Still, he has shown a desire to work with – and even affability toward – leaders of countries that are part of the bloc.
During a February Oval Office meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, he lavished praise on the visiting dignitary.
“President Macron is a very special man in my book,” Trump said.
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Anthony Faiola in Rome and Ellen Francis in Brussels contributed to this report.