The #Trump administration wants something that the terrible figures of George W. Bush's administration, from Cheney to Rumsfeld, did not demand from the Italian government:
it wants the ideological hegemony of the far right not only in the Western hemisphere, but also in the EU.
I say this after spending over 15 years on secret US government docs:
the George W. Bush administration guys didn't care that the only ideology Berlusconi had (according to them) was anti-communism.
As long as #Berlusconi automatically engaged on US behalf,it was ok for them