Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the White House Watch newsletter for freeYour guide to what the 2024 US election means for Washington and the worldReturning US President Donald Trump has already revived some of the most striking ideas of his first term. An American takeover of Greenland and radical action in the Middle East are once more the talk of the world.But what eye-catching proposals has Trump yet to resurrect from his first stint in office? There is one in particular that strikes me as intriguing now as it was then: that the US should buy Nokia or Ericsson, or even both.William Barr, attorney-general under Trump, suggested in 2020 that the US should actively consider taking a “controlling stake” in either or both of the Finnish and Swedish telecoms equipment makers “either directly or through a consortium of private American and allied companies”.Like many Trump proposals, the idea was first met by gasps of disbelief. The US government doesn’t tend to buy foreign companies. But as is the case in some of the president’s outlandish schemes, there was a kind of rationale to the proposed purchase — and one that has not gone away in the meantime.Telecoms equipment manufacturing is one of the very few areas of technology where the US is not just behind but not present at all. Reliable networks are vital for business and consumers alike, as well as becoming increasingly essential in warfare, as Ukraine is demonstrating with its drone warfare.“They have not solved that issue in the US,” says Anna Wieslander, Northern Europe director at US think-tank the Atlantic Council.Nokia and Ericsson have an effective duopoly in much of the western world thanks to American pressure on allies not to use Huawei, their main rival, which has close ties to the Chinese state. But they have struggled to draw as much benefit out of that as many might have expected with both experiencing disappointing profitability in recent years.What is more, Ericsson and Nokia have failed to garner full-blooded support from the EU, all the more strange for being perhaps the one sector where Europe has technology dominance. It was perhaps no surprise to see the bitter rivals take the unusual step of hosting a joint lobbying event last month in Brussels at which Ericsson and Nokia chief executives warned the EU that they needed to act and quickly if the tech gap to the US would not increase further.Beneath the surface, there are signs of something of a flirt from Ericsson and Nokia to the US. Börje Ekholm, Ericsson’s Swedish chief executive, lives in the US and has mused out loud about the possibility of moving its headquarters there too, something its main shareholder — the Wallenberg family of industrialists — seems less keen on. Ericsson also went public on its donation to Trump’s recent inauguration.Pekka Lundmark, Nokia’s departing chief executive, has repeatedly called the US the company’s “second home” even as it lost big American contracts with groups such as Verizon and AT&T in recent years. His replacement at the top of the Finnish company from April will be a US citizen, Intel executive Justin Hotard, with a remit to boost its stagnating sales and share price.Asked this week about the idea of Trump reviving the idea, Lundmark told the Financial Times: “The US is obviously our most important market, and it is very important that we build good relations with the new administration . . . Nokia is a listed company, and our stock is available on the market.”He added that Ekholm had used the Brussels event to send a sharp warning to EU policymakers: “Unless Europe finds a way to be a more competitive home for technology companies, there’s a big risk that companies like Ericsson and Nokia could move somewhere else.”People close to both groups say the problem for each one would be if the other became American. “It would be hugely troublesome. Then they would be a domestic vendor in the US. It would be a headache. We definitely have interest in keeping them European,” says one senior executive of his rival on the other side of the Gulf of Bothnia. The two companies have different ownership structures. Ericsson has the Wallenbergs and another Swedish industrial holding company as big shareholders, but it also has Cevian Capital, Europe’s largest activist investor, which in 2020 pushed management to consider a deal with Trump. Nokia has no anchor investor — its largest shareholder is the Finnish state investment company Solidum with a 5.8 per cent stake.There is no guarantee that Trump will revive this idea. But offering again to buy Nokia or Ericsson could prove to be one of Trump’s most beguiling [email protected]
