U.S. Vice President JD Vance met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Rome on May 18. Vance said he hoped the rendezvous would lead to more trade discussions between the United States and the European Union.
“Europe is an important ally of the United States … but, of course, we have some disagreements, as friends sometimes do, on issues like trade,” Vance said.
He sat next to Meloni and von der Leyen in Rome after attending Pope Leo’s inaugural Mass.
“I think we’ll have a great conversation, and hopefully it will be the beginning of some long-term trade negotiations and some long-term trade advantages between both Europe and the United States,” Vance said.
The Trump administration imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on almost all nations, as well as reciprocal and targeted tariffs on imports like steel, aluminum, and automobiles, which see 25 percent levies. The 20 percent U.S. tariff on EU products will go into effect at the end of the 90-day pause if negotiations fail.
Von der Leyen described the trade relationship between the EU and the United States as the largest in the world, being worth more than $1.5 trillion per year.
“It is important now we’ve exchanged papers that our experts are deep diving, are discussing the details,” von der Leyen said. “Everybody knows that the devil is in the details, but what unites us is that at the end, we want together to have a good deal for both sides.”
She has not yet met with U.S. President Donald Trump since he began his second term in January, only sharing a few brief words at Pope Francis’s funeral at the Vatican in April.
In addition to negotiating tariffs, von der Leyen said she hoped to also discuss Ukraine and defense spending with Vance.
During the Munich Security Conference in Washington earlier this month, Vance said that, fundamentally, Europe and the United States “are on the same civilization team.”
“There’s a big question about what that means in the 21st century,” he said.
The American vice president urged Europe to become more self-sufficient as the Trump administration moves forward with its “America First” foreign policy agenda that sees it shift toward prioritizing U.S. interests and encouraging allies to take on more of the burden of providing military security for the West, particularly in Europe.
Vance called on European nations to increase defense spending to roughly 5 percent of gross domestic product, suggesting that some countries are too comfortable with the existing security arrangement in which America shoulders the most responsibility.
“I do still very much think that the United States and Europe are on the same team,” he said. “European culture and American culture are very much linked, and they’re always going to be linked.”