President Trump is catching a lot of flak for allegedly making up a terror attack in Sweden. But he’s not entirely wrong.
While speaking to supporters in Melbourne, Florida on Saturday, Trump referenced terror attacks in Germany, Belgium, and Sweden, saying America had to all it could to “keep our country safe.” The underlying message in his speech was defense of his controversial executive order (that was recently overturned by the courts) banning all immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and halting refugee resettlement for four months.
“You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden!” Trump said, mentioning that the Scandinavian country had taken in lots of Muslim refugees and was now having problems that they “never thought possible.”
Even though Sweden did not, in fact, have any terror attacks in their country recently, there was one terrorist attack that happened in Gothenburg, Sweden last month, though President Trump made no mention of it at the time. Three members of the white supremacist Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) are suspected of planting a bomb outside a refugee center in the city, seriously injuring one person. The attack happened on January 5, and the three suspects were brought in on February 2. The NRM also planted two more bombs in November and late January, though nobody was hurt from those attempted bombings. The Swedish secret service said all of the attacks were likely politically motivated.
This isn’t the first time Trump has deliberately ignored violent acts of white terror. In January, when a white supremacist killed six and wounded eight at a mosque in Quebec, President Trump made no public comments about the politically motivated mass shooting in the country neighboring the United States, though he did offer Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assistance in a phone call following the attack.
Tom Cahill is a writer for US Uncut based in the Pacific Northwest. He specializes in coverage of political, economic, and environmental news. You can contact him via email at tom.v.cahill@gmail.com, or follow him on Facebook.
