(Bloomberg) -- Norway’s prime minister said he doesn’t see any US President pulling its support for Ukraine or abandoning NATO as the defense alliance benefits all its members.
“I will not accept the prediction that that will happen,” Premier Jonas Gahr Store told Bloomberg TV in an interview on Thursday, commenting on the speculation that the incoming administration may withdraw backing for Ukraine. “When you really go into it and you study it and you have responsibility, you will see what is at stake. The idea that you will be all in or all out, I think that’s a bit too simplistic.”
Store spoke after officials across Europe have voiced concerns over waning US backing for Ukraine following former President Donald Trump’s decision to pick Senator JD Vance — who has opposed all such backing — as his running mate in his election campaign.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he’s “not afraid” of a potential second Donald Trump presidency and that he already has a basic understanding of the general points of Trump’s plan for ending the war.
Along with most other nations on Russia’s western border, Norway is among Ukraine’s biggest supporters against the Kremlin’s full-scale war relative to the size of its economy, according to data compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
Store told local media last week he isn’t ruling out an expansion of his government’s 75 billion-krone ($7 billion), five-year aid package for Ukraine, as he announced a ten-fold boost of its production of advanced artillery ammunition to bolster supplies to Ukraine and its NATO allies.
Norway’s parliament in June approved a plan to almost double defense spending over the next 12 years to adapt to threats from its neighbor, with a focus on naval and air defense capabilities. The country, among the bloc’s founding members, aims to reach its target for spending as part of the defense alliance — at 2% of gross domestic product — already in 2024. A level of 2.7% of GDP is expected to be attained by 2030.
“NATO is a great benefit to all members,” Store said. “I don’t see any American President wanting to renounce on that.”
He added Europe “has to do more” on defense spending and on contributing to regional defense plans.
“We have to demonstrate to the US and to others the value of this partnership,” he said.
Last month, Norway’s chief of defense Eirik Kristoffersen said the alliance has a window of two to three years to prepare before Russia has rebuilt the ability to carry out a conventional attack. The bloc’s outgoing Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Kristoffersen’s countryman, later refuted the comment during his visit to Finland, telling reporters “this idea that there is a kind of a countdown to the next war is wrong.”
--With assistance from Kari Lundgren and Thomas Hall.
(Updates with details, background from sixth paragraph)
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