Did Donald Trump say that America and Italy were allies since the time of Ancient Rome?

1. What Trump actually said — the primary source

At a joint press event in October 2019 President Trump said, “The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years, to Ancient Rome,” language that appears in White House and U.S. Embassy transcripts and in coverage of the remarks ^{[1] [2] [5]}; those public records show he was invoking cultural and historical lineage, not asserting a literal, formal alliance stretching back two millennia ^{[1] [2]}.

2. How the line became a viral claim — conflation and amplification

Social posts and later memes rephrased or exaggerated the original wording into the claim that Trump said the U.S. and Italy have been “allies since the time of Ancient Rome,” a reframing that spread widely online and prompted debunking because it changes a comment about shared heritage into an impossible claim about continuous diplomatic alliance ^{[4] [3]}.

3. What fact‑checkers concluded — heritage versus alliance

Investigations by Snopes and other fact‑check outlets concluded Trump’s remark referenced cultural and political heritage stretching back to Roman civilization and that he did not claim a literal allied relationship through antiquity; their reporting points to the exact transcript and emphasizes that modern nation‑state alliances could not plausibly have existed during the Roman era ^{[3] [6] [4]}.

4. The broader media and expert reaction — nuance and defensiveness

Coverage of the episode split between mockery of the phrasing on social media and defenses from some historians and commentators who said the substantive claim — that American and Italian political and cultural traditions draw on Roman precedents — is defensible as a broad historical observation, not a literal diplomatic claim, with journalists and historians explicitly noting that invoking Ancient Rome as part of a shared cultural lineage is a common rhetorical move ^{[7] [5]}.

5. Why the distinction matters — rhetoric, history, and disinformation dynamics

The leap from “shared heritage” to “we’ve been allies since Ancient Rome” illustrates how shorthand political rhetoric can be weaponized into demonstrably false micro‑claims that travel well on social platforms, and fact‑checkers warn that such distortions shift public attention from what was actually said to caricatured versions designed to provoke ridicule or outrage ^{[3] [4]}.

6. Contemporary echoes and context

The Ancient Rome line has resurfaced in later reporting as part of broader coverage of U.S.–Italy relations and comments by American leaders — for example, references to Trump’s rhetoric appear in reporting about Italy’s current leaders and NATO dynamics — but contemporary accounts consistently trace the quote back to the 2019 press event and the same wording about shared heritage rather than any literal ancient alliance ^{[8] [1] [5]}.

Conclusion

The record is clear: President Trump used Ancient Rome as a rhetorical anchor for a claim about shared cultural and political heritage between the United States and Italy, and multiple primary transcripts and fact‑checks show he did not assert that the two modern states have been formal allies since ancient times; the enduring confusion springs from social amplification that compressed “heritage” into the absurd and viral shorthand “allies since Ancient Rome” ^{[1] [3] [4]}.