Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson warned against inserting a “European preference” into EU defense procurement rules.
“My responsibility, first and foremost, is to get weapons in the hands of these warfighters,” Jonson said on Saturday. “Sometimes that can be from Europeans, sometimes it can be from the Americans or somewhere it can be from Asia.”
Jonson’s warning landed weeks after Thomas DiNanno, the U.S. under secretary of state for arms control, traveled to Poland, Romania and Estonia. The State Department said his Warsaw meetings with U.S. industry representatives included discussions on “EU defense protectionism” and the “America First Arms Transfer Strategy.”
Romanian Foreign Minister Oana Țoiu also framed the balance between equipping troops and building up local defense industries. “Localization was very important, investment in jobs at home was very important,” she said on Saturday.
But Bucharest also wants to “create the space to advance in the engagement with the United States,” she said, adding that Romania’s procurement plan included “more than $2 billion” of U.S. kit.
That need to calibrate domestic interests against keeping an unpredictable Trump-led U.S. committed to the alliance is likely to be a key theme in Ankara.
