HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s president-elect Alexander Stubb said on Monday his country should remain calm and focus on its NATO membership despite former US President Donald Trump’s recent critical comments on the military alliance.
Trump, the front-runner to become the Republican candidate in November’s US presidential election, said last week he would not want to protect NATO members from a future attack by Russia if those countries’ contributions to NATO were lagging.
“US election campaigns are very different from Finnish elections, and the rhetoric used is quite a lot stronger…I think at this stage it is best to remain calm and focus on building our NATO membership,” Stubb told a press conference.
Finland, which won admission to NATO in April last year in response to neighbour Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, spends more on defence than the target of 2% of gross domestic product agreed by NATO member states, Stubb added.
Kaja Kallas, the prime minister of Finland’s neighbouring NATO ally Estonia, said on Monday that Trump’s comments should be a wake-up call for allies to spend more on defence.
Stubb said he wanted to ensure Finland will have a decisive role in NATO. “We want to be in the core of decision-making, sit around the tables where decisions are made,” he said.
