President Alexander Stubb on Wednesday urged European countries to consider the views of US President Donald Trump regarding Nato countries' defence spending. According to Stubb, Finland, at least, will listen to him and act accordingly.
Stubb made the comments to the news agency Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Stubb attended the confab from Tuesday to Thursday, accompanied by Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen (NCP) and Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio (Finns).
"We all understand that Trump has changed US foreign policy and it’s more transactional and we deal with that," Stubb declared.
The president said that Finland produces 60 percent of the world’s icebreakers and that Nato needs 70-90 icebreakers, asking "is there a deal to be made there?".
Regarding Ukraine, Stubb said he believes that Trump wants to bring about peace as "he did…in the Middle East."
In his view, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have important roles to play in bringing peace to Ukraine. Xi must persuade Russia to make peace, and Trump must ensure that the peace is just, he said.
"Trump was right"
Washington wants to retain its status as a superpower, and to do so it needs allies, particularly in Europe, he said.
As to Nato allies’ national spending on defence, he said, Trump "was right originally when he said that Europeans are not taking care of their defence enough; he was right in saying that we aren’t using enough for our defence expenditure," Stubb said.
He hastened to add that this did not apply to Finland, where defence spending "is up at 2.4-2.5 percent, we have one of the largest militaries in Europe, and we actually buy American military material".
"The fact that he’s pushing us to do more on our own I think is a good thing. So what I say is listen to what Trump has to say and act accordingly. A country like Finland will certainly do so."
Trump threatens tariffs on Spain
Trump has repeatedly railed against EU countries that spend less than Nato’s recommended two percent of GDP on their own defence. On Tuesday, he criticised Spain, which ranked last in the 32-nation military alliance, estimated to spend 1.28% on defence last year, AP reports.
Trump then erroneously said Spain was a member of the BRICS nations, which include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
"We are going to put at least a 100 percent tariff on the business they do with the United States…They’re a BRICS nation, Spain. Do you know what a BRICS nation is? You’ll figure it out," he told the reporter from the Oval Office.
