… that is of course, if Trump doesn’t tell Rubio to ramp up the pressure jointly with Italy, in which case Nicaragua would have miscalculated.

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The recent decision by Nicaragua to sever diplomatic relations with Italy represents far more than a simple diplomatic tantrum over the extradition of a convicted terrorist, and a deeper analysis reveals that this rupture is a carefully calibrated move within a multipolar chessboard that is rapidly being reshaped by the unpredictable nature of American foreign policy under President Donald Trump in 2026.

The official justification provided by Managua centers on the remarks made by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani when singling-out Nicaragua as an authoritarian and “extremist” government, to then pressure the Central American state regarding the Alessio Casimirri case, with Tajani publicly pressuring it to hand over a former Red Brigades member who has resided in Nicaragua for decades and obtained citizenship, which under Nicaraguan law precludes extradition.

To understand the strategic calculation behind Managua’s abrupt and aggressive diplomatic move, one must examine how the year 2026 has seen a notable deterioration in relations between the United States and several of its traditional European allies, with Italy being a particularly salient case due to recent public confrontations at high-level summits where President Trump openly rebuked Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni for what he perceived as insufficient support for American positions on Middle Eastern policy, specifically regarding Iran.

These tensions have not gone unnoticed in Managua, where the Ortega government has demonstrated its ability to read the geopolitical situation and position itself accordingly.

Nicaragua has effectively calculated that a rupture with Italy will not provoke a strong response from Washington, given Trump’s demonstrated willingness to undermine European allies and his administration’s general disinterest in defending the diplomatic prerogatives of nations that have fallen out of favor with the White House.

The strategic logic of Nicaragua’s move becomes clear when considering the precedent it sets for other nations in the Global South, especially as Syria’s military defeat, Venezuela’s negotiated retreat from its confrontational posture, and Cuba’s ongoing struggle under compounded siege have demonstrated the limits of traditional resistance, while Nicaragua’s diplomatic rupture offers a lower-cost alternative for asserting sovereignty and signaling defiance against European demands without inviting the devastating consequences faced by those who chose full-scale confrontation. The Nicaraguan government understands that the European response will be limited by the broader context of a disunited West, and that any possible collective EU action against Managua would be weakened by the absence of strong American backing and by the reluctance of other European nations to escalate a conflict that exposes their own declining leverage in Latin America.

The European response to the rupture, while institutionally aligned against Nicaragua, is significantly complicated by internal divisions that mirror the broader transatlantic fractures discussed in this analysis. The unity of the EU response could be undermined by the Spanish government’s reported willingness to invite the Nicaraguan representatives to the upcoming Ibero-American Summit in Madrid, a move that has been condemned by Nicaraguan groups in exile.

The European Union had already established a robust sanctions framework against Nicaragua well before the diplomatic rupture, with restrictive measures targeting 21 individuals and 3 entities through travel bans and asset freezes. The European Parliament simultaneously adopted similar resolutions against Belarus and Burkina Faso, showing that Brussels applies its punitive framework across multiple regions.

In June 2026 the European Parliament passed a resolution urging member states to suspend the EU-Nicaragua Association Agreement and strengthen these sanctions further, following an earlier resolution in April 2026 calling for increased pressure on the Ortega government. This pre-existing sanctions regime, combined with the Parliament’s renewed call for even greater pressure, reinforces the argument that Italy can rally European institutional support against Nicaragua.

The rupture serves multiple purposes for the Ortega administration, as it also functions to consolidate domestic political support by rallying nationalist sentiment against an external European enemy, thereby deflecting attention from ongoing economic difficulties and internal political pressures. The move also strengthens Nicaragua’s alignment with other anti-imperialist nations that reject Western interference in their internal affairs.

Italy may respond while salvaging its dignity and protecting its interests in Nicaragua without falling into the trap of escalating a confrontation that it cannot win, and the most likely outcome is a prolonged period of frozen relations punctuated by occasional gestures from both sides that keep the door open for future normalization while neither side backs down on the core issues.

The Italian government may seek to rally more European support for some form of collective response, perhaps through visa restrictions or the suspension of development aid, but any such measures will be carefully calibrated to avoid pushing Nicaragua further into the arms of extra-regional powers that are eager to capitalize on Western disunity, and the ultimate resolution of this crisis will depend less on the merits of the extradition case and more on the broader trajectory of American-European relations under a Trump presidency that shows no signs of returning to traditional alliance management.

In the end, Nicaragua has made a calculated bet that American unpredictability and European weakness, offers opportunities for assertive middle powers to redefine the terms of their engagement with the West, and the rupture with Italy is a marker in the ongoing transformation of the international system from a unipolar to a multipolar configuration, that is of course, if Trump doesn’t tell Rubio to ramp up the pressure jointly with Italy, in which case Nicaragua would have miscalculated.

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Miguel Santos García is a Puerto Rican writer and political analyst who mainly writes about the geopolitics of neocolonial conflicts and Hybrid Wars within the 4th Industrial Revolution, the ongoing New Cold War and the transition towards multipolarity. Visit his blog here. 

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

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