NATO

US Senate votes overwhelmingly in favour of Sweden and Finland  joining NATO

1:27 min
  • Just after midnight Swedish time, the US Senate voted in favour of ratifying Finland and Sweden's application to join the transatlantic alliance NATO.

  • 95 of the 97 senators present in the chamber voted yes, with one abstention and just one no vote from Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri.

  • Dag Blanck, a professor of North American Studies at Uppsala University, says Hawley's argument was that the US should focus more on China, rather than Russia.