Who’s Alexander Stubb? How the Finnish president became Trump’s favourite
Alexander Stubb didn’t wait for a journalist to raise the question. “Some of the international media might wonder, ‘Why is the president of Finland here?’” he said with a grin. On Monday, US president Donald Trump welcomed a bevy of leaders to the White House for crunch talks on a Ukraine peace deal. Alongside Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, there was the Nato secretary-general, the president of the European Commission and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the UK. Plus, Stubb, president of a country with a population of 5.6 million people. Yes, it has the bloc’s longest land border with Russia, and yes, it has a history of bloody encounters with Moscow. But Finland is not usually in the room with Europe’s key players.
So how did Stubb end up there? The answer is simple: he has aced the art of befriending Trump. While most European leaders have arrived to meet the president armed with bundles of briefing notes, the Finnish president showed up at Mar-a-Lago in March with a set of golf clubs. Stubb, a former national-team golfer, challenged Trump to a round and spent the day driving balls and buggies. By evening, the US president was boasting to the press about his “very good friend” from Helsinki. Since then, Stubb’s mornings have often included a catch-up call with Trump. According to some Washington gossips, senator Lindsey Graham calls him the “bridge between America and Europe” – perhaps an overstatement but proof that people in the US are recognising his influence.
Stubb’s success is not only down to his knack for hitting the green. Presentation counts. He is a former triathlete who still looks as if he could jog a half-marathon before lunch. His double-breasted suits and year-round tan wouldn’t look out of place at a Palm Beach garden party. In the Oval Office on Monday, Trump told him that he “looked better than ever” and introduced him as a “young, powerful man.” None of this is frivolous. Golf tees and flattery are the tools of survival in Trump’s Washington. After his own very public dressing down, Zelensky has realised this too. He wanted Stubb in the room because he thought the Finn might persuade Trump to take Ukraine’s plight seriously. And he borrowed a few tips from Stubb’s playbook: donning a smarter jacket and schmoozing the commander-in-chief.
But here’s the catch. Trump friendships have the shelf-life of supermarket sushi. Remember Macron? Once hailed as Trump’s best European buddy, the French president has ended up on the receiving end of tariffs and sneers. Elon Musk went from golden boy to public enemy number one in the time that it takes to compose a tweet. Stubb’s real test is still ahead. It seems that sooner or later Trump will strike a deal with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. If that deal comes at Ukraine’s expense, the man from Helsinki will face a choice: nod politely or say no. Stubb has already declared that he wouldn’t even take a phone call from the Kremlin. These are fine words but what happens if Trump himself presses the receiver into his hand? The golf course is one thing, a call from Putin another. For now, Stubb is enjoying the spotlight of presidential approval and being given a seat at the big boys’ table. But a time will come very soon when it won’t be Stubb’s swing that is put to the test.
Petri Burtsoff is Monocle’s Helsinki correspondent.
To hear directly from Stubb, listen to our conversation with the Finnish president on why Nordic nations make such great mediators on The Foreign Desk, below:
