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00:00I would never traditionally start a conversation like this with the head of state,
00:03but given the news flow and the headlines and the pictures of texts we've seen over the past few days,
00:09I have to get a better understanding from you directly.
00:12I understand you were on an exchange with the president of the United States
00:15where the president almost explicitly linked his failure to win the Nobel Prize Prize
00:20with a more assertive stance on Greenland.
00:24Did that actually happen?
00:25Well, yeah, I mean, we do message a lot with the president,
00:29and sometimes I message together with the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Garstöre.
00:33So, yes, the response was, as has been reported, and this is what frank diplomacy is all about.
00:40This is quite normal in our engagements behind the scenes, and it's good that we have these conversations.
00:45You'll have to forgive me, but for many people, they don't feel that it's normal
00:48to connect the failure to win a prize with a more assertive stance over someone else's territory.
00:54It is normal to have direct talks.
00:56Of course, on the Greenland issue, I disagree with the president.
01:03I think now what we need to do is to bring down the temperature.
01:07We need to find an off-ramp and probably create some kind of a process which will strengthen arctic security.
01:14And sort of at the end of the tunnel, I wish we could have a NATO summit in Ankara, where we all agree on a new arctic security structure.
01:24I come from an arctic country.
01:26I come from a country which has one of the biggest militaries in Europe.
01:30I come from a country which has the best know-how in arctic defense.
01:34So these are the types of things that we need to work with with the alliance, including the United States.
01:40President Trump has been talking about Greenland since 2019.
01:43What makes it different this time?
01:45What does an off-ramp actually look like?
01:47I think there's a short-term scenario here, and there's a long-term.
01:51Short-term is to basically de-escalate the language.
01:54And I hope we'll see some of that here in Davos, here today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.
02:00And then the second one is a long-term strategic thinking on, okay, is this an issue of sovereignty or is it an issue of security?
02:08I hope that it is an issue of security.
02:11And then we start looking at how we can beef up security in the arctic region.
02:16Now, the latest conversations that I've had about this subject, in the past two to three hours,
02:22this is how fast things are changing in the new foreign policy world, gives me a little bit of hope that we'll find a way.
02:29It feels like a live negotiation.
02:31The president, a lot of the time, does come out with something very aggressive to get to an end point, which really is just a better deal.
02:37I liken this to NATO.
02:40At one point, there was reports he wanted to pull out NATO, but really, at the end of the day, he wanted Europe to spend more.
02:44Is that how you view this, through that lens?
02:47Well, first of all, the president of the United States has a capacity to deal with a multiplicity of issues at the same time.
02:55I mean, you only look at what's happened this year.
02:58Venezuela, Iran, Greenland, Gaza, the Peace Board, and many other things at the same time.
03:06And, of course, add on to that domestic issues.
03:10On the NATO issue, if someone would have told me at the 75th anniversary of NATO in Washington, D.C., in 2024, I think it was,
03:21that we are looking at increasing our defense expenditure to 5% next year,
03:26I would say, please go and see a doctor or consult the Foreign Affairs magazine, because this is not going to happen.
03:32Now, if at the end of the day, after this, what could be called rhetorical escalation, we come up with a stronger Arctic security, then that is good.
03:43And, obviously, we are seeing foreign policy done in a slightly different way from what we're used to.
03:48But, you know, I'm a Finn.
03:49I thought you'd ask the first question that, you know, what do you do?
03:53I said, in these kinds of situations, you take a deep breath, you go in the sauna, and you take an ice bath.
03:58And that's what we're missing, that's what we're missing here.
04:00I've been to your embassy sauna, where they have had diplomatic dealings done.
04:04It's quite a scene.
04:05You could have the ice bath right there.
04:07Look, there is this question, Mr. President, about why European nations were sending more troops to Greenland over the past couple of days in the past week.
04:16At first, it was to beef up and show that they were serious about the security.
04:21That's not what it was about at all.
04:22Okay, so the way that it was taken by President Trump was to defend from the United States.
04:26Yeah, I think there was probably a misunderstanding, or not probably there was.
04:29So basically, let me explain.
04:32There is something called Arctic Endurance, which is basically a NATO training exercise.
04:38That exercise has eight different components, all of which the United States is present.
04:45We were asked by our allies to go and do a reconnaissance mission to check out the territory, the landscape, and how it's going to work out.
04:54This is a completely normal procedure.
04:56And obviously, I can't talk about the specifics of that exercise.
05:00But trust me, it is not trying to protect anything westbound.
05:04It's more eastbound.
05:05At what point do you feel like you're just fielding calls because you're thought of as a Trump whisperer?
05:10I mean, what are you telling your colleagues in other European nations about how to deal with Mr. President?
05:15Well, I think, you know, diplomacy, a lot of times when people analyze diplomacy, they look at it on a state-to-state relations.
05:23You know, what's the values, interests, power, culture, history, geography.
05:27But they forget that a lot of it is actually about person-to-person engagement.
05:34And the fact that I'm able to communicate directly with the president puts me as president of Finland into a good position.
05:42But I have no illusions about being a Trump whisperer.
05:45You know, he's the president of the United States.
05:49He decides completely for himself.
05:51I throw out a couple of ideas.
05:53Sometimes he likes them.
05:54Sometimes he doesn't.
05:55And then I throw ideas to our other European allies and friends.
05:58That's what diplomacy is about.
06:00When did you last speak?
06:02Oh, we spoke.
06:03It was a collective phone call, I think, in Paris on the 5th of December or Berlin.
06:09I forget when it was.
06:10With the president?
06:12Yeah, yeah, but that was sort of a collective.
06:13And the last message with each other was in the last few hours?
06:16I think it's been made public.
06:18That was the last time you spoke.
06:19That's the last time we messaged.
06:21The reason I ask you is I'm trying to gauge whether there was a misunderstanding.
06:24It certainly seems like you perceive there was a misunderstanding.
06:27Well, my perception is that it was a misunderstanding.
06:29So now we need to sit down, discuss, get an off-ramp.
06:34And at the end of the day, we need more Arctic security with European and American presence.
06:40This has clearly played out very publicly.
06:43And you've been transparent about how frank things are, often behind the scenes.
06:47But given how publicly this has played out, what kind of a message do you think this is sending to the Russians at the moment, the way this is playing out?
06:53Well, any time there is a diplomatic issue, to put it diplomatically, between us, the transatlantic partners, I'm sure that the Kremlin is enjoying it.
07:07I mean, and they will use it as they best can, as we saw.
07:11Well, you know, I mean, foreign minister of Russia, Lavrov, puts out a tweet in saying that for the U.S., Greenland is what Crimea is for Russia.
07:21And obviously, you know, that's an insult.
07:24And we all understand that.
07:25So we always have to be careful with the Russians, because they will use any moment and any possibility for good old information, warfare, and propaganda.
07:35The unintended consequences just creates more of a positive attitude towards Russia and China and divides the transatlantic relationship.
07:43How big of a concern is that?
07:45Especially after we just saw Mark Carney go over to Beijing and say they have this new strategic partnership.
07:49Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'm very pro-European.
07:53I'm very pro-American, and I'm a transatlanticist.
07:56So it is in my interest and also based on my values that we have a closer relationship with the United States.
08:03That's why I'm also very pragmatic.
08:05I understand that the United States is the number one superpower.
08:10And what we need to avoid, of course, is a certain disengagement.
08:13At the same time, I have to say that Europe needs to use this moment as well.
08:20You know, it needs to beef up its defense.
08:22It needs to get stronger economically.
08:24And I think, you know, my big thesis is that it's going to be the global south that decides the new world order.
08:30So that means that we need to engage more with the likes of India.
08:34I really like the free trade agreement that the EU forged with Mercosur.
08:40And I think people will start looking a little bit elsewhere.
08:43But I really still want to contain and bring back the U.S. as best we can.
08:48On top of Russia, on that conversation, I've been told that discussions are going very well between the United States and Ukrainians, the United States and the Russians.
08:56Kirill Dimitrov reportedly is here having a conversation with Steve Wyckoff today.
09:00How much longer do you think it will take to get that deal done?
09:04Do you think Putin even wants a deal?
09:05OK, so two observations on this.
09:07The first one is that I'm afraid that the Greenland issue will take all the oxygen here in Davos from the Ukraine dossier, which I still think is fundamentally important and acute.
09:20But the second point is good news.
09:22I think ever since Jared Kushner came into the game, actually in Geneva, right after the G20 summit, and we had another meeting in Berlin and then in Paris, we have a lot of more practicality.
09:35So we basically have, depends on how you count, six documents or two plus five documents.
09:42The good news is that Ukraine, the United States and the Coalition of the Willing of Europe, we're on the same page.
09:48The big question is, are the Russians?
09:50I'm quite skeptical about that.
09:52You know, I think we might get a deal on security arrangements.
09:56We might get a deal on territory, certainly on the prosperity package.
10:00I'm quite hopeful that we'll get something here this week.
10:02But then the Russians will say, yes.
10:05Well, if Russia continues to drag the United States along, do you have a sense of what Trump's red line is with Putin?
10:10I'm not going to start interpreting the red lines of the president of the United States.
10:14But I have to say that I really like what he did on Luke Coyle and Rosneft on the sanctions.
10:20And to be honest, I mean, Putin lied to President Trump about the drones hitting his dacha.
10:25They fired ballistic missiles.
10:27So this is something that certainly will shorten the fuse of the president of the United States.
10:32And it, of course, depends on how much carrot do you put before you hit with the big stick.
10:36Just a final question.
10:37We often ask, I guess, for forecasts at the World Economic Forum.
10:40I'm not going to ask for a long-term one.
10:42Where do you think we'll be at the end of this week?
10:46I think we will have defused the Greenland issue.
10:49I think we will have made progress on Ukraine.
10:53And I am 100% sure that the world will not be finished by then.
10:56I think we will have made progress on Ukraine.
10:57I think we will have made progress on Ukraine.
10:58I think we will have made progress on Ukraine.
10:59We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:00We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:01We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:02We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:03We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:04We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:05We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:06We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:07We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:08We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:09We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:10We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:11We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:12We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:13We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:14We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:15We will have made progress on Ukraine.
11:16We will have made progress on Ukraine.
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