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Reinfeldt, Obama…and Bush

Social democratic editor Eric Sundström examines Fredrik Reinfeldt's recent expression of support for Barack Obama.

Reinfeldt, Obama...and Bush

Like a lightning bolt out of the blue, Fredrik Reinfeldt recently expressed his support for Barack Obama in the current race for US president. But in order to tell the whole story, we should probably start at the beginning.

Reinfeldt’s Moderate Party and President Bush’s Republican Party are members of the same international umbrella organization, the International Democrat Union (IDU). During the 2000 US presidential election, Reinfeldt travelled to the US to examine Republican campaign techniques up close. Let’s not forget that famous photo of Reinfeldt, posing with his sunglasses, a Bush campaign sign waving high. He looks positively impressed.

Obama came out against the Iraq war early on; a war which Swedish conservatives supported. Reinfeldt’s foreign minister, Carl Bildt, lobbied intensively for the war throughout the halls of international political power. And Jan Björklund, now Minister of Education, wanted to contribute Swedish troops.

Reinfeldt has also expressed some support for Obama’s tax policies. But it was in fact Bush who pushed through deep tax cuts for the richest Americans. In the same way, more than half of Reinfeldts tax cuts have gone to the highest third of Swedish earners. A la Bush, one might say.

Sure, it can be hard to compare Swedish and American politics. But one thing is clear: Obama wants to take America to the left, and Reinfeldt is taking Sweden to the right. While Obama wants to raise America’s ambitions for the environment and welfare policy, Reinfeldt wants to dismantle a model which even the US sees as an example worth following.

Reinfeldt is nothing more than a hopeless opportunist. A flip-flopper who will say whatever he can to keep the opinion polls from going down further. Down in Texas, home to Reinfeldt’s party ally Bush, they have an expression for people who talk a lot but don’t do much. And thus I say to Reinfeldt, you are all hat—and no cattle.

Eric Sundström is Editor-in-Chief of Aktuellt i Politiken, a weekly publication distributed nationally in Sweden which examines political and societal issues from a social democratic perspective. It is produced by AiP Media Produktion, a subsidiary of the Social Democratic Party.

OBAMA

Barack Obama to return to Denmark in September

Former US president Barack Obama will visit Denmark for the second time in 12 months to give a talk in Aalborg at the end of September.

Barack Obama to return to Denmark in September
Former US President Barack Obama in Kolding last year. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen / Ritzau Scanpix

Obama’s September 28th stop in North Jutland would have fallen in the same month as the now-postponed official state visit of his successor, Donald Trump, on September 2nd and 3rd.

The 44th president of the United States last came to Denmark in 2018, when he gave a talk for business leaders in Kolding, and also visited while in office.

READ ALSO: Obama uses Denmark speech to warn against 'racial', 'nationalistic' politics

Bill Clinton was the first sitting president to visit Denmark when he visited in 1997. George W. Bush came to the Scandinavian country eight years later in 2005. Obama visited Denmark in 2009 as part of the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen.

Obama’s latest trip to the country was announced by venue Musikkens Hus in northern city Aalborg, which will play host to the event “A Conversation with President Barack Obama”.

Musikkens Hus CEO Lasse Rich Henningsen, who will act as moderator at the event at which guests will be invited to ask questions, said he was looking forward to the occasion.

“President Obama is one of the people I look up to most in the in the world, so I’m hugely looking forward to meeting him,” Henningsen told Ritzau.

The invitation-only Aalborg event is primarily for business leaders, who will form the majority of the audience along with around two hundred students from Aalborg University.

Tickets will cost invited business leaders between 3,500 and 8,500 kroner, while students will attend for free, Henningsen said.

The Musikkens Hus foundation expects the event to break even, while Obama’s fee is undisclosed, Henningsen said.

The visit will be the first to Aalborg by a former US president.

“I’m in not a second of doubt that this will be a new climax for Aalborg and all of North Jutland,” the city’s lord mayor Thomas Kastrup-Larsen said in a press statement.

“I’m delighted that one of the world’s most prominent people sees potential in visiting Aalborg to share his visions about such topics as leadership and entrepreneurship,” he added.

READ ALSO: Trump baby blimp to fly over Denmark protests

Article updated on August 21st, 2019 to reflect President Trump's postponement of his September 2nd-3rd state visit to Denmark.

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