China lost a major foothold in Europe when Italy did an about-face and declared it was backing out of the Chinese Belt and Road deal, saying the deal brought nothing good to the Italian people. Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni had already committed to withdrawing from the deal, but the CCP kept lobbying to hold on to their Italian foothold. Now, that dream is over as Italy has now formally withdrawn from the agreement.
Italy reportedly drops out of China Belt and Road initiative that failed to deliver – abcnews.go.com
Excerpt:
MILAN — Italy has formally withdrawn from China’s global Belt and Road initiative that seeks to deepen relations with foreign countries through infrastructure investments, Italian media reported on Wednesday.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni had previously signaled Italy‘s intention to withdraw from the agreement, which was up for renewal. The Milan newspaper Corriere della Sera reported that a letter with the formal notice had been delivered to Beijing in recent days. Meloni’s office declined to comment on the report.
Italy became the first G7 country to sign on to the initiative in 2019, when the populist, anti-establishment Five Star Movement party-led government promoted it as a way of increasing trade with China while getting investments in major infrastructure projects.
Neither appeared. In the intervening years, Italy’s trade deficit with China has ballooned from 20 billion euros to 48 billion euros ($21.5 billion to $51.8 billion.) And investments in Italian ports that were trumpeted in newspaper headlines were never achieved.