Ahead of NATO summits, normal American presidents prepare by reviewing diplomatic objectives and scheduling discussions with key international partners. Ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Turkey, Donald Trump prepared for the gathering by needlessly extending his weird offensive against an allied leader for no good reason. Time magazine reported:

United States President Donald Trump on Sunday evening shared a social media post featuring Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, reopening a recent dispute between the two leaders ahead of this week’s NATO Summit in Turkey.

Trump posted an image on Truth Social that shows Meloni looking up at the American President, with the words “restraining order needed” printed across the top.

The irony is that Meloni was supposed to be the one leader in Western Europe with whom Trump could get along. Indeed, for months, the American president singled out Meloni, one of the region’s most conservative figures, for praise, celebrating her as a “beautiful young woman” who took Europe “by storm.”

The Italian prime minister was the only European leader to attend his second inauguration, which came on the heels of a Mar-a-Lago visit. Headlines that referred to Meloni as Europe’s “Trump whisperer” soon followed.

In April, however, the relationship started to deteriorate. After the Republican picked a bizarre fight with Pope Leo XIV, Meloni defended the pontiff. The presidential whine was almost immediate: Trump complained that Meloni was “very different from what I thought,” adding, “I’m shocked by her. I ⁠thought she had courage. I was wrong.” He added, “She is the one who is unacceptable.”

In June, for reasons unknown, Trump renewed the offensive, telling an Italian journalist that Meloni had “begged” him to take a photo with her at the recent G7 summit in France.

The prime minister said she was “appalled” by the Republican’s “fabricated” claims.

“I don’t know why the president of the United States behaves like this with his own allies,” Meloni added.

True to form, the American president responded by sticking to his usual strategy: He doubled and tripled down on the dubious claim that had generated the international incident in the first place.

It was around this time that Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani canceled a planned visit to the United States, and other Italian officials reportedly scrapped plans to attend U.S. Independence Day celebrations scheduled in Rome.

“It is unclear whether out of intent or ineptitude [Trump] is wrecking the historic relations between the United States and Europe,” Giovanbattista Fazzolari, undersecretary to the prime minister’s office, said in a statement last month.

“With his inappropriate outbursts, he has managed no easy feat, to make the United States unpopular across the entire European continent, damaging not only Europe but ⁠above all the ​United States,” Fazzolari added.

This week, after the story had faded from view and as Trump prepared for an important international gathering, there was no reason to renew his offensive against his Italian counterpart. Apparently unable to help himself, he did it anyway.

Soon after, the Italian foreign minister told La Stampa newspaper that the country would no longer officially respond to the president’s nonsense.

“We have a U.S. president who loves to provoke, especially on social media,” Tajani said. “We have decided to stop responding to these remarks so as not to fuel disputes among our allies.”

As the NATO summit got underway on Tuesday morning, a reporter asked Trump why he suggested the Italian prime minister might be some kind of stalker. He replied, “Oh, I don’t know. I think she’s a nice person, actually. … I didn’t put a heavy press on her.”

His monthslong offensive suggests otherwise.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

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