The European Union should resist the temptation to respond to United States trade tariffs with import taxes of its own, Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said.
Meloni, who is a close ally of US President Donald Trump, told lawmakers in a debate in Italy's parliament this week that tit-for-tat tariffs between the bloc and its largest trading partner would only fuel inflation and hurt ordinary Italians.
"I am not sure it is good to respond to US tariffs with EU tariffs," she said, noting that the EU should instead adopt a pragmatic stance and look for common ground with Washington in the hope of averting a trade war.
Meloni will join fellow EU national leaders for a summit in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday and Friday, where the issue will be discussed further.
The EU has so-far responded to US tariffs on steel and aluminum with import taxes of its own, including on US alcoholic spirits. But winemakers in Italy are now worried the US will respond to those retaliatory tariffs with another round of new taxes, including 200 percent tariffs on imported Italian wine.
"I am convinced that we need to work concretely and with pragmatism to find common ground and avoid a trade war that would not benefit anyone, not the United States, and not Europe," Meloni said.
She said the two sides could become embroiled in round after round of new retaliatory tariffs "that become a vicious circle where everyone loses".
Meloni also told lawmakers the EU should hold off on its impulse to rearm the continent in the wake of it now seeing Trump as an unreliable ally.
"It is a simple fact of reality that it is not possible to envision a lasting security guarantee by dividing Europe and the United States," she said, suggesting the continent instead persists with its traditionally ally.
After Trump launched tariffs against the EU over what he claims is an unfair goods trade deficit, the EU announced counter tariffs on 26 billion euros ($28 billion) of US goods that are set to start next month.
But Meloni said the bloc, which is the world's largest exporter of manufactured goods and services, should think hard before announcing any more tariffs over concerns that they would dent the EU economy.
She said the EU's negotiations with the US should instead be
"guided more by logic than by instinct".
In 2023, some 19.7 percent of the EU's total exports went to the US, making it the bloc's most important overseas market.
Meloni was the only European leader present at Trump's presidential inauguration in January and had earlier been a guest of Trump at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in the US state of Florida.
