On October 3 last year, Kersti Kaljulaid, a member of the European Court of Auditors, became Estonia’s first female president, as MPs voted her into the position by a 81-0 tally.
About a month later, the U.S. elected Donald Trump as president—an event that dramatically complicated Kaljulaid’s role overseeing a nation that Newt Gingrich, a prominent Trump supporter, once described as “a suburb of St. Petersburg.” There’s fear that Trump—who’s voiced admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin and disdain for NATO—could use Estonia and other Baltic states as pawns in pursuit of a larger deal with Moscow.
But in a recent interview with the Financial Times, Kaljulaid, who assumed the presidential post as a compromise candidate, exuded fortitude even as U.S. tanks rolled into Estonia to—at least for now—reinforce NATO’s frontline against an increasingly aggressive Russia. “We don’t see ourselves as consumers of security, but we see ourselves as equal allies. It proves to me that there is no need for us to be afraid,” she told the FT.
But Kaljulaid has been quieter than some had hoped about the risks of the Trump-Putin bromance, perhaps because Trump—while possessing the potential to sell out Estonia—is also a current source of security, leading one observer to describe Kaljulaid as being between a rock and a hard place.
Kaljulaid says that so long as it doesn’t come at the expense of other nations, she would “relish” better ties between Russia and the U.S. But she also leveled a veiled warning to Trump: “Once you start doing deals, you never know where you will end.”