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Giorgia Meloni pulling Italy out of Belt and Road pact with China
Hotair ^ | 08/07/2023 | Beege Welborn

Posted on 08/07/2023 10:17:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Holy smokes, I love the cut of this girl’s jib!

Since profiling her in February – and the atrocious way she’s been treated by the elitist cabal that runs the EU – Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy has done nothing but move her country forward.

Isn’t that delightful?

In fact, there are a lot of things looking rosy about Italy that can’t be said for the powerhouses of the E.U. and they still treat Meloni as if she had shown up to their ball uninvited and in a tracksuit (That would be Zelensky’s uniform, but everyone in the EU has a man-crush on that guy.)

Besides negotiating new oil deals to free her country from EU Green entanglements as far as energy goes, Meloni has also been considering detangling some of her former office holders’ deals. One of which was not only baffling, but – as she calls it – “atrocious.”

In 2019, Italy, under the then Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, had signed a memorandum of understanding supporting China’s multi-trillion Belt and Road Initiative. Beijing represented an opportunity to export made-in-Italy products.

As the two countries began to finalise the deal, warnings came on many fronts. Both American and European leaders cautioned Rome against signing a bilateral agreement with Beijing. PM Conte, on the other hand, reassured the public that the agreement was purely a commercial one, that favoured Italian national interests.

Conte was lured by China’s huge market potential. Highlighting both America’s role as Italy’s main strategic partner and China’s growing global footprint, Conte envisioned a role for Rome and Brussels to act as a potential bridge between Washington and Beijing.

That was all before the horrific Hong Kong crackdown and China’s human rights abuses became international fodder and cast even more unflattering light on just how the Chinese do business. The Italian parliament began looking for ways to reconsider the deal itself and asking the government to push back against Chinese influence. As Italy was the only major Western country to sign on with the Chinese, it also had the effect of making the Italians something of a pariah at meetings.

The next administration, of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, began the process of discussions, but China’s enormous economic punch always lent an element of danger to any talk of withdrawing completely from the BRI agreement.

italy, 1st in g7 to join china's belt and road, about to become 1st to leave.

choice to join “improvised and atrocious” according to crosetto pic.twitter.com/hdDy1WT0NL

— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) July 31, 2023

It’s been Meloni’s administration who has actually been speaking the words.

The U.S. was deeply critical of Italy’s decision in 2019 to become the only major Western economy to sign on to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI, as it’s known, is an unprecedented global infrastructure project that critics see as Beijing’s attempt to gain influence abroad and make smaller countries financially dependent on Chinese investment.

But this week Italy gave its strongest signal yet that it planned to pull out of the project.

Signing the deal four years ago was “an improvised and atrocious act,” Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto told the Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday. “We exported a load of oranges to China, they tripled exports to Italy in three years.”

Crosetto added a more measured coda: “The issue today is, how to walk back without damaging relations? Because it is true that while China is a competitor, it is also a partner.”

These remarks followed months of reports that Italy planned to quit the BRI. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s far-right prime minister, said her government would make a decision by December, when the pact between Rome and Beijing is due to renew.

It’s goin to be a delicate tap-dance for Ms. Meloni, for, while she’s made it clear she’d very much like to remain on congenial terms with the Chinese, her pivot to the West is a full buy-in to the emerging NATO Asian-Pacific expansion that Britain and France are already working with.

…The discussion was part of NATO’s efforts to “de-risk” – that is, reduce – economic activity with Beijing.

Meloni let it be known she was working to cancel Italy’s participation in China’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative, the trade and infrastructure partnerships that Rome joined four years ago. Meloni indicated Rome could somehow maintain “good relations with China” even as it dropped Belt and Road.

…Meloni, for example, expressed hopes that benign post-Belt and Road relations with Beijing will continue. But she also steered clear of touting Italy’s other China policy feature: entry into the anti-China arms race. Italy joined the United Kingdom in a partnership with Japan to develop new fighter jets.

There’s much more upside to working with United States, Japan, Korea and the Philippines, et al, in concert with other EU nations, as opposed to being owned belt, road, hook, line, and sinker by the Chinese.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; China; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: beltandroad; ccp; china; italy; meloni

1 posted on 08/07/2023 10:17:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

This is all nonsense, as most of what hot air prints. After proposing a “crackdown,” Meloni has totally betrayed the Italian people by doing absolutely nothing to stop the incessant migration of illegal aliens from Africa that are wrecking Italian cities. One need only see all the horrific videos of migrants, raping and robbing and running rampant throughout Italy to see this.


2 posted on 08/07/2023 10:37:17 PM PDT by montag813
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To: SeekAndFind

WOW...WHAT A GREAT SURPRISE.

YOU GO, GIRL, SHOW HOW STRONG ITALIAN WOMEN CAN BE.

WHOOPEE.


3 posted on 08/07/2023 10:53:01 PM PDT by Maris Crane
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To: SeekAndFind

There goes those high end “ITALIAN” handbags and other apparel that are being made in Chinese Occupied cities in Northern Italy.


4 posted on 08/07/2023 11:11:39 PM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Nice.


5 posted on 08/08/2023 2:52:21 AM PDT by mythenjoseph (Always tired but so grateful American !)
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To: SeekAndFind

Ok folks, their are lie’s and then Damned lies...but THEN their are statistics!


6 posted on 08/08/2023 2:53:29 AM PDT by mythenjoseph (Always tired but so grateful American !)
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To: SeekAndFind

Bkmk


7 posted on 08/08/2023 3:21:27 AM PDT by sauropod (I will stand for truth even if I stand alone.)
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s not done yet.

And given Italy’s budgets and sovereign debt, the EU still has Italy by its short hairs.


8 posted on 08/08/2023 3:49:11 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: jdt1138

What area of the world had the worst outbreak of COVID at the start- northern Italy!


9 posted on 08/08/2023 4:02:44 AM PDT by Dr. Ursus
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To: SeekAndFind

Notice how the Ass-Press label Meloni “far-right” while giving the leftwing Conte a total pass.

Whenever a leftist puke steals an election, the Ass-Press immediately brands them a “centrist” or a “pragmatist”. You never hear the words far left.


10 posted on 08/08/2023 4:11:36 AM PDT by Flavious_Maximus (Tony Fauci will be put on death row and die of COVID!)
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To: montag813

Bulls***. The president there isn’t a dictator. It’s not easy to fight these fiends as we have seen here. At least she is trying.


11 posted on 08/08/2023 4:11:53 AM PDT by ZULU (HOOVER, FREEH, MUELLER, COMEY, WRAY, SUCCESSION OF STATIST TRAITORS)
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To: SeekAndFind
Meanwhile, and apologies for the source...

Italy hits banks with windfall tax, sending shares sliding; China’s trade slumps – business live

12 posted on 08/08/2023 4:19:55 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: ZULU
Yeah, let's hear it for Meloni...

Giorgia Meloni’s Political U-turn is Being Noticed in Budapest

Note the bit about the Aspen Institute.

13 posted on 08/08/2023 4:24:44 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: ZULU
And think about this...

Logo Search Meloni meets Biden as Italy poised for big decision on China

Our Deep State trusted her enough to be allowed near to the POTATUS.

They clearly weren't worried she's spill the beans if the POTATUS lost his **** in front of her.

14 posted on 08/08/2023 4:30:56 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
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To: mewzilla

Heads they win, tails ww looae. So sick ofbthis crsp.


15 posted on 08/08/2023 7:45:45 AM PDT by ZULU (HOOVER, FREEH, MUELLER, COMEY, WRAY, SUCCESSION OF STATIST TRAITORS)
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To: Dr. Ursus
What area of the world had the worst outbreak of COVID at the start- northern Italy!

I watched the Italian news as the bodies were piling up. Very scary at the time but in hindsight this was ground zero where the Chinese had just come back from vacation. The effects quickly diminished but it was too late to stop the communists from using the virus to take over the USA.

16 posted on 08/08/2023 7:57:53 AM PDT by jdt1138 (Where ever you go, there you are.)
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To: SeekAndFind; SaveFerris

17 posted on 08/08/2023 7:59:36 AM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: jdt1138

We had someone in the area that were locked in. She said the only sound was church bells during the day and ambulance sirens at nite.


18 posted on 08/08/2023 9:20:40 AM PDT by Dr. Ursus
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To: SeekAndFind

Meloni is an Atlantis garden tool. From the moment she assumed power she has walked away from the best interest of Italians to do the bidding of nato. She has the credentials now for heading up the IMF. /sarcasm


19 posted on 08/08/2023 2:55:22 PM PDT by Bull Man
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To: SeekAndFind

Bravo, a staunch anti commie!


20 posted on 08/08/2023 3:02:41 PM PDT by kenmcg (ti hi o)
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