Trump and Meloni pledge to make Europe great again by reducing illegal immigration

President Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed to make Europe great again by pushing back on illegal immigration, and Mr. Trump agreed to visit Rome and meet with EU leaders.

“I hope that Europe is going to be great again. Europe has gone through a lot of problems, and a lot of it’s having to do with immigration,” Mr. Trump said with Ms. Meloni by his side in the Oval Office.

“And I’m not a big fan of Europe and what they’ve done with immigration at all. And I think they’re going to get smart, because Europe is being very badly hurt by what they’ve done with immigration.”

Ms. Meloni’s efforts to tackle illegal immigration in Italy were the exception, he said, commending her for taking a “very tough stand.”

“I commented to her before, I said, ’I wish more people would be like you having to do with that subject, but they’re not.’”

For over a decade, Europe has faced a flood of illegal immigration and asylum and refugee claims, which caused a backlash from voters against the loose border policies of EU states. European leaders are beginning to tighten immigration laws.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Mr. Trump has reinstated tough border controls immediately upon the start of this second term. He has stepped up deportations and removed thousands of criminal illegal aliens, including sending some to an El Salvador mega prison.

In the Oval Office, Mr. Trump said that Europe is very important to him and the world, and he wants to see it do “very well,” but that they must “get a lot smarter on immigration.”

Ms. Meloni said that things are changing in the EU when it comes to illegal immigration, and Italy is leading the way on that policy.

“The policies of the European Union in the last two and a half years have been changing. At the beginning, we were talking only about how we were redistributing illegal migrants coming to Italy,” she said. “Now we are talking mainly about how to stop illegal migration, working with the countries of origin, transit and returning people.”

She noted that the European Commission recently established new rules for repatriating migrants.

“So things are changing, thanks also to the example that Italy brought in lowering the rates of illegal migration.”

The president and the prime minister covered a range of issues during their luncheon at the White House, including trade, fighting woke ideology that Ms. Meloni said would “erase our History.” They also discussed fighting synthetic drugs, increasing liquified natural gas imports to Italy and expanding nuclear energy.

“I know that when I speak about the West, mainly, I don’t speak about a geographical space. I speak about civilization, and I want to make that civilization stronger,” Ms. Meloni said.

She also announced that Mr. Trump has accepted her invitation to visit Rome and talk with other EU leaders.

“Even if we have some problems between the two shores of the Atlantic, it is time that we try to sit down and find solutions. So I want to thank President Trump for having accepted an invitation to pay an official visit to Rome in the near future,” she said.