On March 11th, the Baltic Republic of Lithuania will celebrate 35 years of restored independence after enduring decades’-long Soviet occupation. An underappreciated European and NATO ally of ours, Lithuania is a freedom outpost in a continent famously encumbered by bureaucracy.
According to the State Department, relations between our two nations have been ironclad since 1922. Politically, I’ve argued there are many similarities between American and Lithuanian conservatives–arguably more than in “nationalist conservative” Hungary. But I might be slightly biased.
I had the opportunity to chat with Laurynas Kasčiūnas, the newly-elected chair of Lithuania's largest center-right party, the Homeland-Union Party, during his recent visit to Washington, D.C. Mr. Kasčiūnas was part of a Lithuania delegation visiting town to get a “pulse” on the second Trump administration.
Last month, the former defense minister was elected as party chair with a commanding 78% of the vote. Traditionally seen as liberal-conservative by European standards, Kasčiūnas’ party is expected to experience “a shift to the conservative right” under his leadership.
The Lithuanian lawmaker remarked that immigration is where his party and Trump’s administration has, perhaps, the greatest overlap. Lithuania, like Poland, has endured the brunt of the EU-Belarus migrant crisis and faced criticism for being tough with migrant pushbacks.
“Immigration–I think we should be tougher,” he said in an interview with Townhall.com. “We did a good job last government. In 2021, [Belarussian dictator] Lukashenko started illegal immigration flows to Lithuania, and we were quite, I would say, brave for stopping it. Starting the redirection policy. Building the fence. It's not a wall, but [a] very effective fence.”
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The conservative party leader faulted Brussels, specifically the European Union (E.U.) leadership, for largely being “politically correct” on immigration, adding “you need to defend the borders.”
Kasčiūnas believes the Trump administration and his supporters will equally appreciate Lithuania’s tough China stance. Lithuania, like the Czech Republic, has been a bulwark against growing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence in Europe. He referred to his country as an “icebreaker” on CCP influence in the E.U.
“I was the initiator of abolishing Huawei to participate in 5G projects in Lithuania. We banned Chinese investments into our Klaipeda port, the only strategic port,” he noted.
Lithuania especially received a lot of flak -including CCP sanctions - for defending Taiwan.
“We have exceptional relations with Taiwan, and yes, China tried to harass us,” he continued. “We have no investment of Chinese [companies] in Lithuanian strategic assets. It gave us the opportunity to survive this pressure, and to show other countries you can survive without China, as Lithuanians are doing.”
Mr. Kasčiūnas and I chatted a few hours before President Trump’s Joint Address before Congress. Trump would later announce he received correspondence from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signaling his intention to sign the U.S. minerals deal. It’s a 180-degree reversal from last Friday’s heated White House meeting. As of this writing, peace talks are currently slated for March 11th in Saudi Arabia.
Lithuania, for context, has stood closely with Ukraine following Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine in both word and action.
“We all are for peace. But the question is [whether] it will be a just peace or unjust peace,” he remarked about ongoing peace talks. “We’re hearing only on concessions from [the] Ukrainian side, and we'd like to see more pressure on Russia to sit on the table, but also to make some concessions.”
In addition to Ukraine support, the Baltic nation isn’t delinquent on its NATO defense spending commitments. In fact, Lithuanian leaders have pledged to up their commitment to 6% by 2030–well beyond the 5% request made by President Trump.
“America is vital for our independence. We are doing a lot ourselves. We now have almost 4% of GDP for defense. The idea is to have even 5-6% of GDP,” added the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defence deputy chair.
A recent Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) report revealed the E.U. actually spent more on Russian oil and gas imports, or nearly $22 billion, over support for Ukraine (or $19 billion) last year. With Western Europe lagging behind here, recent U.S. pressure has prompted the 27-member union to commit to a $800 billion REARM Europe defense package.
Readers of my Townhall column know Lithuania successfully decoupled itself from Russian oil energy imports and, recently, its electric grid. Mr. Kasčiūnas conveyed to me that Lithuania’s energy independence framework can - and should - be replicated by other European nations.
“We did a lot of things during [the] last 15 years on energy independence, and my party was leading on that,” he said. “We created the infrastructure for LNG, and we have [an] LNG terminal, which is like a source of gas independence. 50% of liquid gas is coming from [the] United States - from Louisiana - and we would like to increase that.”
We ended our conversation on the subject of deregulation, a policy that is now center stage in Brussels. The European Commission recently announced a revised plan to “cut red tape” and “simplify EU rules for citizens and business.”
What does Mr. Kasčiūnas think about Brussels potentially adopting an American-like posture here? He agreed that E.U. nations like his “need to do something” on deregulation and to possibly even go further.
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