Just three days after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met with President Joe Biden at the White House, Italy’s defense minister Guido Crosetto stated that the nation’s 2019 decision to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was both “improvised and atrocious.” According to Crosetto, the government of Guiseppe Conte, leader of the populist Five Star Movement, had signed on to the arrangement expecting to increase Italian exports to China. Instead, Crosetto asserted, the arrangement “led to a double negative result. We exported a load of oranges to China, they tripled exports to Italy in three years.”
Even before Crosetto issued his remarks, it was clear that Rome was developing cold feet over its participation in the BRI. For its part, China was concerned that during Meloni’s Washington visit she would make an announcement regarding Italy’s future participation in its primary international initiative. Both Chinese media and government spokesmen warned of what China’s ambassador to Italy, Jia Guide, termed the “negative impacts” of Italian withdrawal.