Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Are things going to
Speaker 1: settle down?
Speaker 2: The President threatening to impose additional tariffs on some European
Speaker 2: allies supporting Denmark while he pursues Greenland. The Finland President
Speaker 2: Alexander Stoop joins us. Now for more, Mi's the president.
Speaker 3: Good to see you, Nice to see you.
Speaker 1: Thanks for always making some time for us.
Speaker 2: Look, I would never traditionally start a conversation like this
Speaker 2: with a head of state, but given the news flow
Speaker 2: and the headlines and the pictures of text we've seen
Speaker 2: over the past few days, I have to get a
Speaker 2: better understanding from you directly. I understand you were on
Speaker 2: an exchange with the President of the United States where
Speaker 2: the President almost explicitly linked his failure to win the
Speaker 2: Nobel Priest Prize with a more assertive.
Speaker 1: Stance on Greenland. Did that actually happen?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, I mean we do message a lot with
Speaker 4: the President and sometimes I message together with the Prime
Speaker 4: Minister of Norway, you and US Guard Sturt. So yes,
Speaker 4: the response was as has been report, and this is
Speaker 4: what frank diplomacy is all about. This is quite normal
Speaker 4: in our engagements behind the scenes, and it's good that
Speaker 4: we have these conversations.
Speaker 2: You'd have to forgive me. But for many people, they
Speaker 2: don't feel that it's normal to connect the failure to
Speaker 2: win a prize with a more assertive stance over someone
Speaker 2: else's territory.
Speaker 3: It is normal to have direct talks.
Speaker 4: Of course, on the Greenland issue, I disagree with the President.
Speaker 4: I think now what we need to do is to
Speaker 4: bring down the temperature. We need to find an off
Speaker 4: ramp and probably create some kind of a process which will.
Speaker 3: Strengthen Arctic security.
Speaker 4: And sort of at the end of the tunnel, I
Speaker 4: wish we could have a NATO summit in Ankara where
Speaker 4: we all agree on a new Arctic security structure.
Speaker 3: I come from an Arctic country.
Speaker 4: I come from a country which has one of the
Speaker 4: biggest militaries in Europe.
Speaker 3: I come from a.
Speaker 4: Country which has the best know how in Arctic defense.
Speaker 4: So these are the types of world things that we
Speaker 4: need to work with with the Alliance, including the United
Speaker 4: States Prision.
Speaker 5: Trump has been talking about Greenland since twenty nineteen. What
Speaker 5: makes it different this time? What does an off ramp
Speaker 5: actually look like?
Speaker 4: I think there's a short term scenario here in this
Speaker 4: is a long term, short term is to basically de
Speaker 4: escalate the language, and I hope we'll see some of
Speaker 4: that here in Dubos here today, tomorrow and the day
Speaker 4: after tomorrow.
Speaker 3: And then the second one.
Speaker 4: Is a long term strategic thinking on Okay, is this
Speaker 4: an issue of sovereignty or is it an issue of security?
Speaker 4: I hope that it is an issue of security, and
Speaker 4: then we start looking at how we can beef up
Speaker 4: security in the Arctic region. Now, the latest conversations that
Speaker 4: I've had about this subject in the past two to
Speaker 4: three hours, this is how fast things are changing in
Speaker 4: the new foreign policy world. Gives me a little bit
Speaker 4: of hope that we'll find a way.
Speaker 1: It feels like a live negotiation.
Speaker 5: The president a lot of the time does come out
Speaker 5: with something very aggressive to get to an endpoint, which
Speaker 5: really is just a better deal. I liken this to NATO.
Speaker 5: At one point there was reports you want to pull
Speaker 5: out NATO, but really at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: you wanted Europe to spend more.
Speaker 3: Is that how you view this through that lens? Well,
Speaker 3: first of all.
Speaker 4: The president of the United States has a capacity to
Speaker 4: deal with the multiplicity of issues at the same time.
Speaker 4: I mean, you only look at what's happened this year Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Gaza,
Speaker 4: the Peace Board and many other things at the same time.
Speaker 4: And of course add on to that domestic issues on
Speaker 4: the NATO issue. If someone would have told me at
Speaker 4: the seventy fifth anniversary of NATO in Washington, DC in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty four, I think it was that we are
Speaker 4: looking at increasing our defense expenditure to five percent next year.
Speaker 3: Hour, please go and see a.
Speaker 4: Doctor or consult the Foreign Affairs magazine, because this is
Speaker 4: not going to happen now.
Speaker 3: If at the end of.
Speaker 4: The day, after this what could be called rhetorical escalation,
Speaker 4: we come up with a stronger Arctic security, then that
Speaker 4: is good. And obviously we're seeing foreign policy done in
Speaker 4: a slightly different way from what we're used to. But
Speaker 4: you know, I'm a Finn. I thought you'd ask the
Speaker 4: first question that you know, what do you do? I said,
Speaker 4: in these kinds of situations, you take a deep breath,
Speaker 4: you go in the sauna and you take an ice bath.
Speaker 4: And that's what you're a missing. That's what we're missing.
Speaker 5: Your embassy sauna where they have had diplomatic dealings done
Speaker 5: quite a scene.
Speaker 3: You can have the ice bath right there. Look, then
Speaker 3: there is this.
Speaker 6: Question, mister President, about why European nations were sending more
Speaker 6: troops to Greenland over the past couple of days in
Speaker 6: the past week. At first it was to beef up
Speaker 6: and show that they were serious about the security, not what.
Speaker 3: It was about at all.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, So whether it was taken by President Trump
Speaker 6: was I.
Speaker 4: Think there was probably a misunderstanding or not. Probably there was.
Speaker 4: So basically, let me explain. There is something called Arctic Endurance,
Speaker 4: which is basically a n to a training exercise. That
Speaker 4: exercise has eight different components, all of which the United
Speaker 4: States is present.
Speaker 3: We were asked by our allies.
Speaker 4: To go and do a reconnaissance mission to check out
Speaker 4: the territory, the landscape, and how it's going to work out.
Speaker 4: This is completely normal procedure and obviously I can't talk
Speaker 4: about the specifics of that exercise, but trust me, it
Speaker 4: is not trying to protect anything westbound.
Speaker 3: It's more eastbound.
Speaker 6: At what point do you feel like you're just fielding
Speaker 6: calls because you thought of as a Trump whisperer. I mean,
Speaker 6: what are you telling your colleagues and other European nations
Speaker 6: how to deal with mystery.
Speaker 3: Well, I think you know, diplomacy.
Speaker 4: A lot of times when people analyze diplomacy, they look
Speaker 4: at it on a state to state relations. You know,
Speaker 4: what's the values, interest, power, culture, history, geography, But they
Speaker 4: forget that a lot of it is actually about person
Speaker 4: to person engagement, and the fact that I'm able to
Speaker 4: communicate directly with the president puts me, as President of
Speaker 4: Filing into good position. But I have no illusions about
Speaker 4: being a Trump whisperer. You know, it's he's the President
Speaker 4: of the United States. He decides completely for himself. I
Speaker 4: throw out a couple of ideas, sometimes he likes them,
Speaker 4: sometimes he doesn't, and then I throw ideas to our
Speaker 4: other European allies and friends.
Speaker 3: That's what diplomas is about.
Speaker 1: When did you last week?
Speaker 3: Oh, we spoke.
Speaker 4: It was a collective phone call I think in Paris
Speaker 4: on the fifth of December or Berlin. I forget when
Speaker 4: it was, but we're the president. Yeah, yeah, but that
Speaker 4: was sort of a collective.
Speaker 1: And the last message with each other was in the
Speaker 1: last time.
Speaker 3: I think it's been made public.
Speaker 1: That was the last time you spoke.
Speaker 3: That's the last time. That's the time we messaged.
Speaker 2: The reason I asked this is I'm trying to engage
Speaker 2: whether there was a misunderstanding. It certainly seems like you
Speaker 2: perceived there was a misunderstanding.
Speaker 4: My perception is that it was a misunderstanding. So now
Speaker 4: we need to, you know, sit down, discuss, get an
Speaker 4: off ramp and at the end of the day, we
Speaker 4: need more Arctic security and with European and American presence.
Speaker 2: This is clearly played out very publicly, and you've been
Speaker 2: transparent about how frank things are often behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: But given how publicly this has played out, what kind
Speaker 2: of a message you think this is sending to the
Speaker 2: Russians at the moment where this is playing out.
Speaker 4: Well, any time there is a diplomatic issue, to put
Speaker 4: it diplomatically between US the Transatlantic partners, I'm sure that
Speaker 4: the Kremlin is enjoying it, I mean, and they will
Speaker 4: use it as they best can, as we saw, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, for a minister of Russia, love Rov puts
Speaker 4: out a tweet and saying that for the US, Greenland
Speaker 4: is what Crimea is for Russia, and obviously you know
Speaker 4: that's an insult and we all understand that.
Speaker 3: So we always have to be.
Speaker 4: Careful with the Russians because they will use any moment
Speaker 4: and any possibility for good old information warfare and propaganda.
Speaker 5: The unintended consequences is just creates more of a positive
Speaker 5: attitude towards Russia and China and divides the Transatlantic relationship.
Speaker 3: How big a concern is.
Speaker 5: That, especially if we just saw Mark Karney go over
Speaker 5: to Beijing and say they have this new strategic partnership.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, I'm very pro European,
Speaker 4: I'm very pro American, and I'm a Transatlanticist. So it
Speaker 4: is in my interests and also based on my values
Speaker 4: that we have a closer relationship with the United States.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm also very pragmatic. I understand that the
Speaker 4: United States is the number one superpower and what we
Speaker 4: need to avoid, of course, is a certain disengagement. At
Speaker 4: the same time, I have to say that Europe needs to.
Speaker 3: Use this moment as well.
Speaker 4: You know, it needs to beef up its defense, it
Speaker 4: needs to get stronger economically, and I think, you know,
Speaker 4: my big cisis is that it's going to be the
Speaker 4: global South that decides the new world order. So that
Speaker 4: means that we need to engage more with the likes
Speaker 4: of India. I really like the free trade agreement that
Speaker 4: the EU Fortuo Mercosur, and I think people will start
Speaker 4: looking a little bit elsewhere, but I really still want
Speaker 4: to contain and bring back the US as best we
Speaker 4: can on.
Speaker 3: Top of Russia.
Speaker 5: On that conversation, I've been told those discussions are going
Speaker 5: very well between the United States and Ukrainians, the United
Speaker 5: States and the Russians. Krull Dimitriev reportedly is here having
Speaker 5: a conversation with Steve Wikoff today. How much longer do
Speaker 5: you think it will take to get that deal done?
Speaker 5: Do you think Putin even wants a deal?
Speaker 4: Okay, So two observations on this. The first one is
Speaker 4: that I'm afraid that the Greenland issue will take all
Speaker 4: the oxygen here in Davos from the Ukraine Dossea, which
Speaker 4: I still think is fundamentally important and acute.
Speaker 3: But the second point is good news.
Speaker 4: I think ever since Jared Kushnair came into the game,
Speaker 4: actually in Geneva right after the g twenty summit, and
Speaker 4: we had another meeting in Berlin and then in Paris,
Speaker 4: we have a lot of more practicality. So we basically
Speaker 4: have depends on how you count six documents or two
Speaker 4: or two plus five documents. The good news is that Ukraine,
Speaker 4: the United States, and the Collision of the Willing or
Speaker 4: Europe we're on the same page. The big question is
Speaker 4: are the Russians. I'm quite skeptical about that. I think
Speaker 4: we might get a deal on security arrangements, we might
Speaker 4: get a deal on territory, certainly on the prosperity package.
Speaker 4: I'm quite hopeful that we'll get something here this week.
Speaker 4: But then the Russians will say yet, well, if Russia.
Speaker 5: Continues to drag the United States along, do you have
Speaker 5: a sense of what Trump's red line is with Putin?
Speaker 4: I'm not going to start interpreting the red lines or
Speaker 4: the President of the United States, but I have to
Speaker 4: say that I really like what he did on Luke
Speaker 4: Oil and Rosneft, on the sanctions, and to be honest,
Speaker 4: I mean putin light to President Trump about the drones
Speaker 4: hitting his datcha. They fired ballistic missiles. So this is
Speaker 4: something that certainly will shorten the fuse of the President
Speaker 4: of the United States. And it of course depends on
Speaker 4: how much carrot do you put before.
Speaker 3: You hit with the big stick.
Speaker 2: To find a question, we often ask our guests for
Speaker 2: forecasts at the World Economic Forum. I'm not going to
Speaker 2: ask for a long term one. Where do you think
Speaker 2: will be at the end of this week.
Speaker 4: I think we will have defused the Greenland issue, I
Speaker 4: think we will have made progress on Ukraine, and I
Speaker 4: am one hundred percent sure that the world will not
Speaker 4: be finished by then.
Speaker 1: Mister President, thanks for your time.
Speaker 3: Thanks