This week's podcast looks at how Donald Trump's second term in the White House will affect Finland. The 47th president of the United States will take office in January, and his initial picks for cabinet appointments have raised some eyebrows because of their populist or pro-Russia statements.
Regardless of those officials, however, there will be changes for European countries used to Joe Biden's Atlanticist outlook, particularly in security policy. Trump has frequently complained that some countries don't pull their weight on defence spending and sheltering under security guarantees offered by the US government.
That means the target for defence spending could rise from the current two percent of GDP — a target that many European countries are not meeting even now.
"Defence spending is absolutely a critical element here," said Matti Pesu, a researcher at the Finnish Institute for International Affairs. "And I would be very surprised if Nato didn't increase the defence spending target in the upcoming Hague summit next summer."
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
With Trump's outriders calling for mass deportations and denouncing vaccines, the possibility of big changes in policy direction is on the cards. That could put Finland's foreign policy, which is based on "values-based realism", to the test.
The principled move would be to speak out and cut links with a state that was undertaking those actions, Yle's US correspondent Iida Tikka told the show, but that is not so likely to happen.
"Finland would be pretty much left by itself at that point," she added.
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Egan Richardson, Ronan Browne and Matthew Schilke presented this episode of All Points North. The audio engineer was Juha Hjelm.
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