Meloni accused of flouting EU trade rules after Trump shares fake video

The EU's trade rules have been called into question after US President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform, which claims to show Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attempting to strike a direct trade deal with the US.

On 19 October, Trump shared a link to an X postwhich has amassed thousands of likes and shares, with a caption alleging that Meloni has "defied the EU".

"In a stunning political move, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that Italy will ignore EU trade rules and strike a direct deal with Donald Trump’s administration, effectively breaking ranks with Brussels," a female voice says in the video.

"After a private meeting with Trump, Meloni declared that she'll do what's best for Italy, not the EU," the narrator continues. "Trump reportedly assured her that the US and Italy will 100% get a deal done."

The video also claims that Meloni will scale back Italy's support for Ukraine, and that Trump has praised her leadership.

These allegations have sparked concerns among Italian politicians across the political spectrum, with Senator Francesco Boccia of the Democratic Party and Green MP Luana Zanella calling on the prime minister to deny the claims in the video.

However, despite the uproar from some politicians and social media users, the video has no basis in fact, not least because of the AI-generated voice it features and its frequent misspelling of Meloni's name.

It carries a TikTok watermark that also bears the name of the user who originally posted it. A look at the user's profile shows that they routinely share similarly misleading content in the style of news reports with AI-generated narration.

Ultimately, there's no evidence that Meloni is actively pursuing a direct Italy-US trade deal, most likely because she knows that this is impossible under EU rules.

As the European Commission says, "Trade outside the EU is an exclusive responsibility of the bloc, rather than the national governments of member countries."

"This means the EU institutions make laws on trade matters, and negotiate and conclude international trade agreements," it continues.

Meloni's office did not respond to The Cube's request for comment as of the time of writing, but Italian news reports state that ithas denied being in private trade talks with Trump, acknowledging that they're being led by the European Commission.

The prime minister's office said that Italy is only in bilateral discussions with the US over antidumping duties against various Italian pasta producers. Dumping refers to foreign goods sold at a lower price than their normal value, stimulating competition and harming domestic industry.

It is true, however, that Trump appears to be a fan of Meloni as he has praised her multiple times in the past.

More recently, at the Gaza Peace Summit in Egypt on 13 October, Trump said Meloni — the only woman at the event — was well-respected in Italy and very successful, and made headlines for calling her "beautiful" multiple times.

"We have a woman, a young woman, who's a — I'm not allowed to say it, because usually it's the end of your political career if you say she's a beautiful young woman," Trump said.

"Now, you use the word beautiful in the United States, about a woman, that's the end of your political career, but I'll take my chances," he continued, searching for Meloni among the leaders onstage. "Where is she? There she is. You don't mind being called beautiful, right? You are."

Meloni has also shown herself to be keen to foster good relations with Trump. She was the only EU leader to attend his inauguration in January, and she positioned herself as his ally in the fight against "woke and DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] ideology" during a visit to the Oval Office in April.

The video also mentions that Trump said that the US-Italy partnership "goes back thousands of years". While there's nothing to suggest he made such a statement recently, he has previously made a similar claim during a 2019 meeting with Italy's President Sergio Mattarella.

"The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome", said Trump.