On Monday President Donald Trump made a big promise to American workers: Finland will be buying up lots of fighter jets from Boeing, an American company.
“One of the things that is happening is you’re purchasing large amounts of our great F-18 aircraft from Boeing and it’s one of the great planes, the great fighter jets,” Trump said during a press conference with Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto.
But there was one problem: The president didn’t verify before he spoke. Because the next day, Niinisto tweeted that he wouldn’t commit to replacing his country’s fighter planes with Boeing’s F-18 aircraft.
Uutinen f-18 hävittäjien ostamisesta on ankka.
— Sauli Niinistö (@niinisto) August 28, 2017
Niinsto told Finnish reporters, “It seems that on the sale side, past decisions and hopes about future decisions have mixed . . . The purchase is just starting, and that is very clear here.”
And the country is eyeing a bunch of companies to replace his old fleet. Many of them aren’t based in the United States, Reuters notes:
A government working group has listed possible candidates as Saab’s Jas Gripen, Dassault Aviation’s Rafale, Boeing’s Super Hornet, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 and the Eurofighter, made by Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Finland won’t be taking bids until 2018, so there’s plenty of time for Trump to do some more lobbying — however direct or indirect they may be. But they won’t be making a decision until “the early 2020s,” perhaps long after Trump has left office.
