An intense spat between US President Donald Trump and Italy’s Prime Minister Meloni took place last week, not long after the end of the G7 meeting in Evian. Initially, Trump told a minor Italian TV show that Meloni begged for a picture with him in Evian, something he wasn’t obliged to do, but did as he felt sorry for her. She was certainly eager to make things right after a recent interview given to a major Italian newspaper, where Trump said he was disappointed by Meloni, who didn’t support him in the war in Iran. Meloni decided to ignore that first reprimand.

Some experts in body language, studying the various interactions between Trump and Meloni in Evian, did say that everything in her posture showed she was really looking for some form of approval from Trump, to show the two were back on the good terms they’ve always had. So, even if Meloni didn’t explicitly ask for the photo opportunity, everything suggested she was clearly hoping for that to happen, and at least implicitly looking for it. But the absence of an explicit request motivated Meloni’s initial response to Trump’s allegation: “I, and Italy, never beg for anything” was the conclusion of her response, which started by saying she was astonished by Trump’s words, and she wished that Trump was as harsh with the West’s enemies as he is with his allies.

As reported by some media outlets, Meloni felt this wasn’t over – and in fact a few hours later, Trump made an official statement, saying that “Giorgia Meloni asked, over and over, for a picture with [him]”, as “she is doing poorly in Italy with her level of popularity” and therefore “she wants to be friends again in order to get her numbers up.” He lamented that Italy didn’t help with the military operations in Iran, by not conceding use of its bases. To which she responded by saying that her popularity depends on her defense of Italy’s national interests, rather than her friendship with him, and that Trump should worry about his popularity ratings rather than her. A few hours later, Mr Zampolli, one of Trump’s closest allies, said that this cannot be sugar coated: it’s a rupture between the two.

We suspect that this clash between Trump and his staunchest defender in Europe (after the fall of Hungary’s Orban) masks something much deeper than a clash among strong personalities. On the US side, it clearly betrays Trump’s nervousness about the result of the Iran campaign, from both a military and a diplomatic perspective. Militarily, Iran withstood the attack of the two strongest armies in the Western world (US and Israel), maintained its missile arsenal (with Trump even saying they have the right to keep it) and has not committed to stop its nuclear program. In the fourteen points of the ceasefire agreement, it’s obvious that Iran got much more than the US, including USD 300bn of reparations from the region, disguised as an investment fund. In wars, the defeated country pays reparations to the winning country. As negotiations begin in Luzern, Trump knows that he’s got much more to lose than to win.

In Europe, Meloni knows that she cannot really count on Trump anymore, and with elections approaching, she needs to remain close to Europe (which still sends its EU recovery fund monies) and to the Pope, whom she defended from Trump’s attacks a few weeks back.

To conclude, this is yet another confirmation of how disastrous Trump’s decision to attack Iran was, and how bad the ramifications of that decision could be.