A master class on dealing with a bully - delivered by Italy.

From the post … when Trump lied about his interaction with Meloni … “Meloni did not issue a toothless, twenty-page bureaucratic statement that said absolutely nothing. She delivered a devastating, direct public counter-strike that instantly traveled across the globe, stating flatly that the story was a total fabrication and proclaiming that Italy and its leadership absolutely do not beg for American scraps.

It was a flawless demonstration of how to dismantle a playground bully: state the unvarnished facts, defend your national honor, draw an immediate boundary, and refuse to engage in further social media mudslinging.”

And the Italian government went one step further … “When Washington operates on the absurd assumption that foreign leaders will simply swallow public humiliations to maintain access, they completely miscalculate the domestic pressures facing their allies. Foreign heads of state answer to their own electorates, and standing up to an abusive superpower is rapidly becoming far better domestic politics than groveling beside one.

The Italian government made that perfectly clear. The Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, immediately canceled a highly anticipated, high-level administrative mission to the United States. Along with that cancellation, an entire multi-lateral business and scientific forum linked directly to trans-Atlantic trade was completely shut down. This is how you send a real bill to a bully: you stop providing them with the professional stage they require to look important, and you inflict a tangible financial cost on their isolationist tantrums.”