Alexander Stubb:
Well, no. No, I don’t share that view.
I mean, two observations on this. Finland has been working on military and defense industry and cooperation with the United States since the early 1990s, when we bought our over 60 F-18s. Always a very reliable partner in so many ways. As a matter of fact, in my first phone conversation with President Trump, we discussed the F-35s.
And we are on track for the first delivery before the end of this year, and we will continue to work with the American military industry. Just a little gentle reminder, I think, two things. One is that military planning is always long term, so you don’t make these orders and then just suddenly say, sorry, we’re not going to do it.
I mean, it’s really, really long processes. We’re talking five, 10, even 15 years, so you can’t sort of just switch them off. The second one is that I don’t think that there is a disincentive for the U.S. military industry to wind down in Europe. The reason is that Europe actually buys double the amount of stuff from the U.S. in terms of military equipment, in terms of vehicles, in terms of the F-35s, than the U.S. does itself.
