The news last week that the Trump administration sounded out Fifa, world football’s governing body, about replacing Iran with Italy at this year’s World Cup jolted insiders and pundits on the beautiful game. It has also cast fresh light on the unusual and evolving relationship between Donald Trump and Giorgia Meloni.

In recent weeks, the Italian prime minister’s standing as the darling of the US right has been imperilled by an unexpected rift with the Oval Office. Trump dramatically distanced himself from his Italian ally over her refusal to join US attacks on Iran in an interview. “I’m shocked at her. I thought she had courage, but I was wrong,” the US president told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

The reported US approach to Fifa – since ruled out by Italian ministers – may have signalled a wish by Trump to mend fences with the Italian leader.

Meloni’s relationship with Trump has never been primarily about policy. It has been grounded instead in politics, ideology and geopolitics – a triad that has defined both its strengths and its limits.

Politically, Meloni has leveraged her proximity to Trump while maintaining pragmatic ties with EU leaders. This dual track has enhanced her international reputation as a responsible rightwing leader and a go-to figure in Europe. She has sought to present herself as someone capable of bridging worlds – aligned with the nationalist conservative wave emanating from Washington yet credible and constructive in the European mainstream.

Ideologically, Meloni and Trump both subscribe to a civilisational vision of the west as a community of nations bound together by common history, religion and cultural – if not ethnic – homogeneity. Geopolitically, her approach stems from the conviction that, in an era of great upheaval and competition between powers, European countries still have a strategic imperative to remain close to the US regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Adaptation, rather than complaint, has been Meloni’s guiding principle. This explains why she consistently refrained from confrontation every time Trump lashed out at Europe.

The problem is that her proximity to Trump has yielded few tangible advantages for Italy – apart, perhaps, from some clemency on US imports of Italian pasta. Where Italy has conceded to Trump – on tariffs or higher defence spending – it has done so alongside the rest of Europe. Where it has resisted US pressure – on Ukraine or Greenland – it has done so through coordination with EU partners, not bilateral leverage with Washington.

The war with Iran has laid bare the strategic limitations of this approach. Its economic consequences have been felt directly by Italians at the petrol pump. The war has also reinforced a broader perception among Italians that not only is Trump seeking to subordinate European allies but he is also making the international system structurally insecure.

Meloni’s balancing act has therefore become increasingly difficult, especially in the wake of last month’s domestic setback in the referendum on judicial reform, in which her association with Trump proved a liability. Having initially refused to condemn the war in the Middle East, she eventually stated publicly that it was not in Italy’s interest.

Then came the breaking point. Trump’s personal attack on Pope Leo XIV, after the pontiff’s criticism of the US administration’s war on Iran, left Meloni with little room for manoeuvre. For an Italian conservative and self-styled Catholic leader, silence was not an option.

Even then she avoided direct confrontation. Her response was measured: a defence of the dignity of the pope and a statement that the president’s words were “unacceptable”. Most likely she hoped she could create some distance without provoking a rupture. But Trump’s repeated personal insults towards her transformed the situation into a political headache.

Short term, the rift may even offer her political benefits. Meloni has emerged as a defender of the Italian national interest and of the Catholic church, even attracting a degree of solidarity from the opposition, which has so far failed to capitalise on her closeness to Trump. Longer term, it is not going to be so easy for Meloni. Her most viable course now appears to be a renewed emphasis on pragmatic relations in Europe. Her participation in the recent Paris summit on the strait of Hormuz – during which she made a point of physically embracing Emmanuel Macron, the bete noire of the Italian far right – signals as much.

At the same time, she will try to mend fences with Washington. Had Trump been less explicit in his displeasure, this recalibration might have proceeded quietly. The fact that the idea of Italy replacing Iran at the World Cup came from an Italian national working for Trump, US special envoy Paolo Zampolli, may be seen as an indirect olive branch to Meloni. But the lukewarm reaction in Italy shows the risk of trying to mend ties in such an unorthodox way. It could easily be seen as an undignified act of contrition by Meloni, costing her some of the domestic political capital she has gained by standing up to a US president who is deeply unpopular in Italy.

Meloni thus finds herself at a crossroads. She can lean more decisively towards Europe or seek to re-engage with the US on Trump’s terms. Her past suggests a reluctance to make such binary choices, but circumstances may soon force her hand. If Europe continues to be excluded from key decisions affecting its security, as with Ukraine, and its economic stability, as with Iran, the association with Trump could become an albatross around her neck at a critical moment in her career.

She will enter campaign season – the next general election in Italy is scheduled for December 2027 at the latest – with no major reform attached to her government, a sputtering economy and a deteriorating security environment for which Trump bears significant responsibility in the eyes of many Italians.

The tension between Meloni the party leader and Meloni the statesperson is no longer abstract. It may become untenable. The question is not whether she can continue to balance the two but for how much longer.

• Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali in Rome