President Joe Biden on Thursday thanked far-right Premier Giorgia Meloni for Italy's steady backing of Ukraine, offering a warm welcome to the White House to a leader that his administration saw with some trepidation when she rose to power last year as the head of Italy's first far-right-led government since the end of World War II.
Biden administration concerns about her ideology have been eased by her support for Ukraine and her seeming openness to pull back from Italy's participation in China's infrastructure-building Belt and Road Initiative. Her visit came as Italy prepares to take up the presidency next year of the Group of Seven industrialized nations.
White House officials said the leaders' agenda was focused on Ukraine and China as well as the stream of migration from North Africa to Europe's southern shores. More than 1,900 migrants have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean so far this year, bringing the total of dead and missing since 2014 to 27,675, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Meloni became Italy's first far-right leader to serve as premier in Italy's post-World War II republic after the Brothers of Italy party she co-founded more than a decade ago emerged as the largest vote-getter in the September 2022 elections."On issues of foreign policy, there's been a lot of overlapping and mutually reinforcing approaches that we're taking on with Italy," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
"For without a world based on the international law, we would live in a world of chaos," Meloni said. "That's not the world we want to live in. We want to live in a world in which we can respect sovereignty and freedom." When Meloni ran for premier, she called for a naval blockade of northern Africa to thwart smugglers' boats overcrowded with migrants determined to reach Europe's southern shores. But once in office, she quickly dropped talk of any blockade.
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