After forging unexpectedly fond ties with President Biden, Italy's right-wing Premier Giorgia Meloni is poised to leverage a more natural alliance with incoming President Trump that positions her as a key interlocutor between the U.

And while many extreme-right politicians in Europe have wavered in their support for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Meloni has offered fulsome backing for Kyiv – even convincing her fellow rightwinger, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, to agree to a €50bn aid package to the war-torn country.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is one of just a handful of world leaders to have been invited to Mar-a-Lago since his election victory last November — but whether she can be Europe's "Trump whisperer" is more complicated.

Lago, an invitation to Monday's inauguration and good relations with Elon Musk, Italy's Giorgia Meloni has positioned herself as the closest mainstream European leader to Donald Trump.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose rise to power in Rome two years ago sparked panic among the European political establishment, may now be the continent’s best hope to have one of its own in the good graces of the Trump White House.