Finns' trust in the United States on defence and security issues has fallen further since last year, according to a new NATOpoll survey.
Only around one in eight respondents said they trusted the US under President Donald Trump to defend Nato's European member states.
Trust in US support was highest among supporters of the Finns Party and the National Coalition Party. Distrust was meanwhile strongest among supporters of the Left Alliance and the Greens. Women were also more skeptical than men.
Given a scenario where someone other than Trump was president, only just over a quarter of respondents said they trusted the US to come to Europe’s defence.
Concerns over defence ties
The survey also suggested growing unease over Finland's defence ties with Washington. Finland signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with the US in 2023, but many respondents expressed doubts about relying too heavily on American support.
A majority said Finland should increasingly purchase weapons from Europe or other like-minded countries rather than the US. Many respondents also supported reducing the use of American cloud services and software in the public sector, even if alternatives were more expensive or less efficient.
Support for Nato remains high
Despite growing skepticism towards the US, support for Nato remained relatively strong. According to the survey, 73 percent of respondents would still vote in favour of Nato membership.
Support for the alliance was higher among men than women and stronger among older respondents than younger age groups. The survey also found that support for Nato had declined among supporters of the Finns Party and the Social Democratic Party of Finland.
The poll further found that most Finns would support Denmark if tensions between the US and Denmark over Greenland escalated further.
NATOpoll is a long-running research project funded by the Kone Foundation. The survey was conducted using Taloustutkimus’ online panel and included responses from 3,141 people. The margin of error was estimated at up to 1.8 percentage points.
