Although not fascist itself, the new government he formed displayed gestures of friendship towards Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy, a state which advertised itself as a rising force — "The Nation" called Averescu "Romania's Mussolini", as "an epithet which the new premier of Rumania bestowed upon himself". Contacts established (as early as a June 1926, when Mihail Manoilescu had negotiated a loan in Rome) were one of the major points of divergence between the policies of Averescu and those of Brătianu: the former attempted to overcome the embarrassment provoked by Mussolini when, due to Romania's debt, the Italian government had recalled the ambassador and had refused to permit King Ferdinand's pre-convened visit.