Trump Promises A Trade Deal With Europe

President Donald Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni both expressed optimism during a White House meeting on Thursday about an eventual trade deal between the United States and Europe.

"There will be a trade deal, 100 percent," Trump promised. “Of course there will be a trade deal. They want to make one very much and we are going to make a trade deal, I fully expect it, but it will be a fair deal.”

It marked the first time Trump publicly expressed confidence about trade negotiations with Europe, which he has frequently disparaged and accused of ripping off the U.S. on trade and not pulling its weight on defense. Thus far, he has prioritized talks with Japan, Korea and other Indo-Pacific nations in hopes of increasing pressure on China.

Meloni, the first European leader to visit the White House since Trump imposed and then paused a sweeping tariff regime against the European Union, noted that she couldn’t negotiate on behalf of the entire 27-member bloc but suggested that frank conversations would pave the way for an eventual agreement. European goods are still subject to Trump's 10 percent global tariff on nearly everything imported into the United States.

"I'm sure we can make a deal," Meloni said in front of journalists at the start of a lunch meeting. “I’m here to help with that.”

The Italian leader, who hails from her country’s far right but has worked closely with EU and NATO partners since taking office, also invited Trump to visit Italy in the future.

Trump lavished praise on Meloni, calling her “a great prime minister” and “one of the real leaders of the world.”

Although Meloni coordinated with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ahead of her visit to Washington, some EU officials have been nervous about her visit jeopardizing a united front toward the U.S. on trade. And their sense that Trump would frame the visit as evidence that world leaders are, as he put it a week ago, “kissing his ass” in response to the tariff threats proved to be well founded.

“Every nation wants to meet!” he boasted on TruthSocial ahead of Meloni’s arrival. “Italy today!”

But a White House official, granted anonymity when briefing reporters earlier, made clear that the Italian prime minister’s visit had been in the works " long before the tariffs came into place,” contradicting Trump’s own framing of the meeting as a response to his tariff play.