UK politicians condemn Trump’s threat to impose tariffs over Greenland | Greenland
British politicians and diplomats have condemned Donald Trump’s decision to impose 10% tariffs on Britain and seven other European countries amid the ongoing row over Greenland.
The US president said the tariffs will apply from February 1 to NATO members, including Britain, France and Germany, who have sent troops to the polar island in response to growing uncertainty about its future.
Trump said that if an agreement is not reached to buy Greenland, tariffs will increase to 25% on June 1.
“Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland traveled to Greenland for unknown purposes… This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security and Survival of our Planet,” Trump said in his Truth Social post.
Downing Street has yet to comment publicly on Trump’s announcement but opposition politicians have condemned it.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said: “President Trump declaring tariffs on the UK via Greenland is completely wrong.
“These tariffs will be another burden on businesses in our country. Greenland’s sovereignty should be decided only by the people of Greenland.”
Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: “Starmer’s US policy is in shambles. Trump is now punishing the UK and its NATO allies simply for doing the right thing.”
“It’s time for the Prime Minister to stand firm against the bully in the White House and work with European and Commonwealth allies to dissuade him from this reckless plan.”
Reform leader Nigel Farage said Trump’s Greenland tariffs would “hurt” the UK. He said: “We don’t always agree with the U.S. government, and we certainly disagree in this case.”
Stella Creasy, Labor MP for Walthamstow, said: “Trump’s tariffs and threats mean it’s time to make up your mind. If we can’t trust America and don’t want to get closer to China, our answer is to get serious about our strategic future with Europe.”
“NATO needs this too; the reset must be real and happen quickly for the good of us all.”
Lord Peter Ricketts, a former national security adviser and retired senior diplomat, told BBC Radio 4’s Prime Minister program that “the right thing for European countries was to react very calmly” and “continue to argue that all of America’s security interests can be served by working with Denmark and NATO”.
“Remember that in the Cold War America had 10,000 troops in Greenland, so it is completely open for Americans to increase their military presence unilaterally and without resorting to such threatening approaches,” he said.
He added that European leaders could make it clear in private talks that “this tariff thing won’t work, first of all, the European Union has a single tariff, so it can’t put tariffs on individual EU countries, it’s the EU as a whole.”
“Instead of threatening tariffs, we need to work together to address very legitimate issues related to Greenland security; not that China is going to take over, but we need all of us in NATO to prioritize Arctic security,” he said.
“The way to do that is to work together, and in the past, I think Keir Starmer and others have been quite effective at working with President Trump privately and not publicly, and I think we need to get back into that routine to get him to see that there are other ways to get what he wants without this kind of threatening, blustering language about tariffs.”
