Donald Trump Threatened Trade War Against Sweden to Release A$AP Rocky: Report

Rania Aniftos

Back in 2019, former President Donald Trump was personally involved in getting A$AP Rocky out of jail in Sweden after a street fight, and now, more details are emerging.

Sweden’s Justice Minister revealed to a local news source this week that Trump used bullying tactics, including threatening to wage trade restrictions against the country, to free the rapper. “If you can try and do something like this against Sweden, what will you then try and do to slightly weaker countries that don’t have the European Union behind them?” Minister of Justice Morgan Johansson allegedly said to the publication.

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Billboard has reached out to A$AP Rocky’s team for confirmation and comment.

Three years ago, Rocky was arrested along with his two bodyguards and charged with assault after a 19-year-old man was hurt in a June 2019 fight. He pleaded self-defense, saying he tried to avoid a confrontation with two men who were following his entourage.

Trump intervened on behalf of the rapper while he was in jail and called Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven on July 20, offering to guarantee his bail.

“Give A$AP Rocky his FREEDOM,” the former president tweeted at the time, also calling out Lofven by name for his handling of the situation. “We do so much for Sweden but it doesn’t seem to work the other way around. Sweden should focus on its real crime problem!”

Upon the rapper’s release in August, Trump tweeted, “A$AP Rocky released from prison and on his way home to the United States from Sweden. It was a Rocky Week, get home ASAP A$AP!”

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