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What to Make of Trump Meloni Meeting

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Bloomberg Apr 18 05:11 · 5845 Views

Bloomberg’s Wendy Benjaminson discusses President Trump hosting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and whether or not this meeting could result in tax exemptions for Italy or the greater European Union. Wendy weighs in on Meloni being the first EU leader to meet President Trump on tariffs and how this meeting could impact the European Union overall. She speaks with Joe Mathieu on the late edition of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power.”

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Transcript

  • 00:00 This is an important meeting.
  • 00:01 We're just trying to figure out exactly what might come
  • 00:03 from it.
  • 00:04 Does this end with exemptions?
  • 00:06 I know it's a word the White House doesn't like to use for Italy.
  • 00:08 No tariffs on wine and cars and cheese.
  • 00:11 Maybe pasta.
  • 00:12 Or is she an emissary for the EU?
  • 00:14 Because
  • 00:15 this could splinter the EU.
  • 00:17 It really could.
  • 00:17 I mean, she's presenting herself as an emissary from the EU, but the more left-leaning nations are sort of like,
  • 00:23 don't help
  • 00:24 Misses Mall, Miss Maloney,
  • 00:26 you know, she she comes at this from
  • 00:29 a sympathetic to Trump's perspective.
  • 00:31 She's talked about making Western civilization great again, meaning America and Europe,
  • 00:37 you know, and she is much more aligned with Trump's politics, which makes the rest of Europe very nervous.
  • 00:42 However, she also doesn't want tariffs on all those wonderful products we get from Italy that she talked about.
  • 00:48 And so,
  • 00:49 you know, she's it's, it's very possible that she will not reach a deal with Trump and there will be 20% tariffs on top of the 10% tariffs that are already in place
  • 00:59 on Italy.
  • 01:00 And
  • 01:01 although she is proposing
  • 01:03 that she and Trump
  • 01:06 meet with the EU president
  • 01:08 von der Leyen,
  • 01:09 and that
  • 01:10 she could serve as a go between with them, Trump in his presidency has yet to meet with the EU president.
  • 01:16 And they set trade policy for the entire continent.
  • 01:19 So it's a little odd that it's being splintered.
  • 01:21 So the EU would have to sign off on anything.
  • 01:23 And absolutely, yes.
  • 01:24 Right.
  • 01:25 So are we going to be talking about the Rome Accords at some point here?
  • 01:28 The president accepted the invitation.
  • 01:30 It's possible.
  • 01:31 It is possible.
  • 01:31 But, you know, you never know these days because
  • 01:34 he'll say,
  • 01:35 as he did last weekend, I, I am exempting,
  • 01:38 you know,
  • 01:39 consumer electronics.
  • 01:41 Then said, no, I'm not.
  • 01:42 I'm just delaying them.
  • 01:44 You know, it becomes very confusing to write all of this because it's changing even as we speak.
  • 01:48 This could have all been happy talk.
  • 01:50 And he's going to go away and say, you know,
  • 01:53 forget Italy.
  • 01:54 I'm going to,
  • 01:55 I'm, I'm going to go ahead and slap wine tariffs on all that wine.
  • 01:58 We just don't know.
  • 01:59 Depends on his mood it seems.