Biden’s attention strategy for Meloni. The meaning of the choice of the new ambassador

According to those who say they know him, it seems that his only stable relationship with the Bel Paese, excluding vacations he had years ago, was the one provided to him by “Italian Touch”, the very active restaurant chain there on the east coast of his native Delaware, between Dover and Rehoboth Beach. A little food sovereignty for export, a little harmful Italian sounding. And yet, if Joe Biden wanted him, Jack Markell, as the new ambassador in Rome, it is for what everyone, between Via Veneto and its surroundings, defines as a “signal of attention”. Which has two meanings, in hindsight. In the sense that there is a renewed recognition of the importance of relations between Italy and the USA; and, however, at the same time, there is also an unequivocally political dispatch that the White House sends to Palazzo Chigi: let’s be vigilant, we will be vigilant.