It has long been clear to anybody outside the die-hard MAGA scene that America First would sooner or later amount to America Alone. And still, the accelerating pace at which President Donald Trump is alienating other nations and isolating his own is breathtaking.
As one example of this pathology, consider his recent interactions with Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni, you may recall, was until recently considered one of the foreign leaders who was chummiest with the president — a European “Trump whisperer.”
But Trump is unpopular in Italy and not only because he keeps inveighing against the pope. Meloni has had to distance herself from the Trump’s most egregious mistakes, including the war he launched with Israel against Iran. Italy was among several European countries that denied the U.S. the use of their air bases for its bombing campaign.
Trump apparently couldn’t let that sit. After having his picture taken with Meloni and other leaders at a summit of the Group of Seven in France, the president told an Italian TV station that she “begged” him for that photo and that he only posed for it because he “felt sorry” for her.