The Kingdom of Sweden was the first country not formally engaged in the conflict (although around a hundred Swedish volunteers partook on the side of the Patriots[1]) to recognize the United States before the Treaty of Paris.

During the Cold War, Sweden did not join NATO and maintained a neutral status between the Western and Eastern Bloc, although its democratic and mixed capitalist approach was generally more in tune with the West and the United States.

Under a comprehensive mandate, Sweden's nonalignment policy has led it to serve as the protecting power for the United States and to represent Washington in North Korea on consular matters.

Roosevelt said in his speech:[9] Nor have we as Americans forgotten that after the War of the Revolution, Sweden was the first neutral European power to negotiate a treaty of amity and trade with our young and struggling nation.

All these things we Americans recall today with grateful hearts.The first Swedish head of government who met with a US President was Prime Minister Tage Erlander, who visited Harry S. Truman at the White House in 1952.

In December 1972, Olof Palme (then Prime Minister) made a speech on Swedish national radio where he compared the ongoing US bombings of Hanoi to some of the worst atrocities committed by the Nazis.

Ingvar Carlsson met with President Ronald Reagan in 1987, the first time that a Swedish Prime Minister was invited to the White House since 1961, when Erlander paid a visit to Kennedy.

In June 2019, American rapper ASAP Rocky, real name Rakim Mayers, was arrested and held on remand in Sweden over a physical altercation in Stockholm.

A spokesperson for prime minister Löfven released a statement in response to Trump's request which stated that the government was not allowed to influence legal proceedings in Sweden and that "everyone is equal before the law".

During the Cold War, the Swedish government secretly made preparations to receive military aid from the United States in case of Soviet aggression.

[22] Sweden also aided the US in secrecy, possibly most famously when four Swedish pilots were awarded US Air Medals for saving the highly classified Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane from Soviet hands.

The US pilots of the SR-71 stated that had Sweden not intervened and escorted the plane to safety on 29 June 1987, a dramatic escalation to the Cold War could have occurred through an international crisis.

[23] The event was classified for over 30 years, and when the report was unsealed, data from the NSA showed that several MiG-25s had been dispatched with the order to shoot down the SR-71 or force it to land after it had gotten an engine failure.

[24] Reflecting the fact that Sweden has a higher proportion of English speakers than most other countries which were never part of the British Empire, Swedish producers and songwriters have played a significant role in the sound of American pop music since the 1990s.