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Marco Rubio’s visit to Rome, after an audience at the Vatican with the Pope on Thursday, saw talks on Friday with the Italian government: a ‘positive meeting’, during which it was reiterated that the “American presence in Europe is important” and that Italy “does not want trade wars”, announced Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, who received the US Secretary of State before before he proceeded to Palazzo Chigi to meet Giorgia Meloni.
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The conversation with the Italian premier lasted an hour and a half and touched on international current events in the Middle East. “We await a development in the coming hours” on the peace negotiations with Iran, said Rubio, who reiterated to Meloni how US President Donald Trump “has not yet decided on the withdrawal of troops” in Italy, but that he personally is a “strong supporter of Nato” and the possibility of having forces in Europe “that we can deploy in other emergency situations.”
“With Meloni we have not talked about bases,” the US secretary of state said at a press point at the US embassy in Rome, “but some countries like Spain by denying use have created unnecessary dangers for us.
As for Lebanon, there will be talks “probably next week” and “Italy can do something more in helping to resolve the situation because of its expertise and presence on the ground,” Rubio continued, who also returned to the “very positive” visit to Leo XIV.
“It was an important meeting to exchange our views and explanations on what we are doing. I updated them on the situation in Iran and expressed our views on why this operation was important and the danger Iran poses to the world,” he said further.
Tajani and Rubio’s conversation at the Farnesina
“I reaffirmed Italy’s full support for diplomacy as the only way to avoid further escalation in the Middle East and ensure freedom of international navigation,” Tajani wrote on X after the meeting, “when conditions allow, in Hormuz we are ready to contribute to a multilateral naval initiative, and of a defensive nature, to ensure freedom of navigation.”
The Italian minister also reiterated ‘that it is important to have an American presence in Europe to strengthen NATO and of course it is also important to have a strong commitment from Europeans in this regard, which the Europeans are doing’.
It is necessary ‘for Western nations to protect their economic interests’, the US State Department announced in a note at the end of the meeting where ‘bilateral cooperation as well as global and regional security challenges were discussed’, wrote the Secretary of State’s spokesman, Tommy Pigott.
On the agenda of the talks at the Farnesina were the strengthening of Italy’s and the EU’s relations with the US, the crisis in Iran, the future of the ceasefire in Lebanon and the Unifil mission, the situation in Ukraine, Venezuela and Cuba.
“Italy is in favour of ‘a big market’ that includes Europe, the US, Canada and Mexico,” Tajani finally said regarding the new threat of tariffs on the auto sector launched by US President Donald Trump last week.
During his meeting with Tajani , Rubio presented a family tree attesting to his Piedmontese, as well as Cuban, origins, in the presence of the president of the Piedmont Region and the mayor of Casal Monferrato.
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