Jan 18): US President Donald Trump and Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico met in Florida on Saturday (Jan 17) to boost bilateral ties, including cooperation on a €15 billion (US$17.4 billion, or $22.42 billion) nuclear project.
The talks, held at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, underscored Bratislava’s effort to strengthen relations with Washington while pursuing policies that often diverge from the European Union mainstream.
The meeting followed Friday’s signing of an intergovernmental agreement on nuclear energy cooperation, a move that’s expected to open formal talks with Westinghouse Electric Co. Slovakia plans to build a 1,200 MW reactor under state ownership, and Fico has signalled that the contract could be awarded to Westinghouse as early as next year and completed around 2040.
“Both countries fully recognise that serious energy challenges cannot be solved through wind turbines or photovoltaics, and that the cornerstone for the future is the rapid development of nuclear energy,” Fico said in a video recorded during his flight back to Europe and published Sunday morning.
Fico, 61, said he and Trump discussed several international issues, with a particular focus on Ukraine. He reiterated Slovakia’s emphasis on peace solution.
“Diplomacy and mutual listening must take precedence over military solutions,” Fico said.
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The four-time prime minister often employs Trump-like rhetoric, prioritising national interests even at the expense of long-standing partnerships. Despite his left-wing domestic policies, Fico’s nationalist stance earned him an invitation to the conservative CPAC conference in the US last year.
Fico has previously sought to leverage his rapport with Trump to push for lower US tariffs on European cars. Trump’s trade measures have hit Slovakia’s auto-dependent economy hard; once the second-largest market for Slovak carmakers, and exports to the US have fallen by half since the introduction of higher tariffs, according to an analysis by UniCredit Bank.
Fico, along with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, is a critic of EU policies including military aid to Ukraine, ambitious climate targets, and the bloc’s migration policy. He survived a 2024 assassination attempt in which he was shot four times.
See also: Trump hits eight Nato allies with tariffs as he pursues Greenland
Trump has repeatedly urged European governments to cut their reliance on Russian energy, yet approved a temporary exemption for Hungary and Slovakia, landlocked countries that border Ukraine and are heavily dependent on Russian supplies.
Fico has also sought to strengthen economic ties with Moscow and Beijing. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, he has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin several times. Fico halted Slovakia’s military assistance to Kyiv in 2023, saying that it was “unnecessarily prolonging the war”.
While Fico has described Russia’s war in Ukraine as a violation of international law, he has also asserted that Moscow was provoked into it by the West. Fico said he would welcome an early peace, even at the cost of territorial concessions by Ukraine.
Uploaded by Liza Shireen Koshy
