Finland’s president: We must admit US is changing, ‘conflicts with our values’

HELSINKI – Europe and Finland need to acknowledge that the US is changing and that the US administration’s ideology behind its foreign policy “conflicts with our own values”, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb said on Feb 4.

European NATO members, including Finland, have been rethinking their foreign policy strategies in recent weeks, after US President Donald Trump in January

inflamed tensions

with his European allies over Greenland, an overseas territory belonging to Denmark.

Finland will update its foreign and security policy doctrine to reflect the changes in the international situation, Mr Stubb told Members of Parliament in a speech.

“We must honestly acknowledge that the United States is undergoing change. Its approach to its allies, as well as its way of conducting foreign policy, is also changing,” he said, calling the US “an important ally” nevertheless.

Mr Stubb has sought to maintain close relations with Mr Trump to seek his support for Ukraine amid

Russia’s invasion

and to boost Finland’s own security as a neighbour to Russia.

“The foreign policy of the current US administration is underpinned by an ideology that conflicts with our own values,” he said, giving as examples of such conflicts of values the US undermining the existing international order, operating outside international institutions and downplaying the importance of Europe.

Mr Stubb gave no timeline for the foreign and security policy review, but said the work with the government was only beginning. REUTERS