During a joint press conference with the Swedish prime minister, President Trump said he was right to say immigration created an uptick in crime in the Nordic nation.
‘Certainly you have a problem with the immigration that’s caused problems in Sweden,’ Trump began. ‘I was the first one to say it, took a little heat, but that was OK, because I proved to be right.’
Trump originally made the claim last February during a campaign-like rally in Florida.
President Trump (right) brought up the eye-brow raising comments he made about Sweden last year, which some suggested alluded to an imaginary terrorist attack during his joint press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven (left)
Immigration was one of the topics discussed at Tuesday’s joint press conference at the White House between Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven (left) and President Trump (right)
‘You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,’ Trump said back in 2017, leading many to speculate the president was confused, as no terror attack had occurred.
The president later explained that he had been watching Fox News Channel, which aired a report on a documentary filmmaker blaming Sweden’s growing immigrant population for a crime surge.
‘Sweden, they took in large numbers, they are having problems like they never thought possible,’ the president had said at the rally.
A week later, on the stage of the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump suggested he was in the right yet again.
‘I took a lot of heat on Sweden,’ Trump said. ‘I love Sweden. Great country, great people, I love Sweden, but they understand I’m right. The people over there understand I’m right.’
At the time, Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Lofven, the same politician who was visiting the White House Tuesday, said he was ‘surprised’ by Trump’s comments.
‘We have opportunities, we have challenges, we’re working [on] them every day,’ Lofven said. ‘But I think also we must all take responsibility for using facts correctly, and for verifying any information that we spread.’
Lofven was asked by a reporter at the White House about his criticism of Trump, with the journalist pointing to a New York Times piece that detailed an uptick in gangs in immigrant communities, which have been leading to grenade deaths.
The story talks about how the weapons, left over from the Bosnian conflict, have come into Sweden through its open border with Denmark and ended up in the hands of gangs made up of Tunisians and other immigrants from Finland, the Balkans and Africa.
‘In Sweden we have our share of domestic challenges, no doubt about that,’ Lofven explained.
He relented that previous administration that allowed 163,000 refugees to enter the country in 2015 was ‘not sustainable’ and that Sweden was working with the European Union so that more countries took on ‘their share of the responsibility.’
‘This is not the responsibility of one, two, three, four countries, it’s a shared responsibility,’ Lofven said.
Trump, answering a different question on immigration, suggested Sweden would sort itself out.
But you do have a problem and I know the problem will slowly disappear, hopefully rapidly disappear, but as far as our relationship with Sweden it’s going to be only stronger, only better,’ the American president said.