EU diplomats holding crisis talks over Trump Greenland tariff ‘blackmail’ | Greenland
Top European diplomats were holding crisis talks after Donald Trump said he was targeting eight European countries with tariffs that oppose his attempt to annex Greenland.
Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni said Trump’s tariffs would be a mistake, and Dutch foreign minister David van Weel described the US president’s threats against allies as “blackmail” as the backlash from European leaders continues to mount.
French president Emmanuel Macron will call on the EU to use its powerful anti-pressure tool if the United States continues to impose tariffs in the dispute over Greenland, Agence France-Presse reported Sunday, citing its staff.
The anti-repression law, which has never been used before, allows the EU to impose punitive economic measures on a country that wants to force policy change.
The EU is also considering reactivating counter-tariffs worth 93 billion euros on US goods, which were prepared in response to Trump’s previous economic threats but were suspended after the two sides struck a trade deal last summer, according to diplomatic sources. The measures would impose taxes on US automobiles, industrial goods, food and beverages.
Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 member states met in an emergency session on Sunday after Trump threatened tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands and Finland.
In a joint statement, these countries said their military exercise “Arctic Resilience” was a commitment to strengthening security “as a common transatlantic interest” and that it “posed no threat to anyone.”
“Tariff threats are undermining transatlantic relations and leading to a dangerous decline,” they said. “We are determined to protect our sovereignty.”
Last week, Trump accused the countries sending troops to Greenland of playing a “very dangerous game” and said that these countries would be subject to customs duties of 10 percent as of February 1 and 25 percent as of June 1.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump said the tariffs would apply until an Agreement is reached for the Total and Complete acquisition of Greenland, a largely autonomous region that is part of Denmark.
Threats to Greenland have cast a huge shadow over NATO and thrown into doubt the EU-US trade deal the bloc signed with Trump last August. Manfred Weber, leader of the European Parliament’s largest group, the centre-right European People’s Party, tweeted on Saturday that “ratification is not possible at this stage”, a conclusion already reached by socialist and Green MPs.
The agreement, which would reduce the EU’s customs duties on some US goods to zero, was expected to be approved by February.
In his statement on Saturday, Macron stated that Europe will not change its attitude towards the US seizure of Greenland, saying: “When faced with such situations, no intimidation or threat will affect us, neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere else in the world.”
EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa said in a joint statement that tariffs would “undermine transatlantic relations and lead to a dangerous decline.” It seems that the duo, who signed a trade agreement with four South American countries in the Mercosur bloc in Paraguay, were caught off guard by Trump’s latest threats.
Meloni, one of Trump’s strongest allies in the EU, told reporters in Seoul that he had spoken to him and told him what I thought, and said the proposed sanctions were a “mistake”.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who bonded with Trump over their shared love of golf, said European countries are united to support Denmark and Greenland. He wrote of X: “Tariffs would undermine the transatlantic relationship and lead to a dangerous decline”.
German Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said his country will always reach out to the United States in the search for a common solution, but “we will not be blackmailed and there will be a reaction from Europe.”
A spokesman for the Bundeswehr said on Sunday that the reconnaissance mission to Greenland had been completed as planned, after German newspaper Bild reported that German troops had flown home.
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, speaking on behalf of the British government, said Trump’s decision on tariffs was “completely wrong” but refused to say whether Britain would retaliate with its own countermeasures.
Spanish leader Pedro Sánchez said the US invasion of Greenland would make Vladimir Putin “the happiest man in the world” by legitimizing the Russian President’s attempt to invade Ukraine and sounding the “death knell for NATO”.
of Sánchez Interview to La VanguardiaThis document, published on Sunday but understood to have been made before Trump’s latest threat, reflects Europe’s broad support for the Danish territory.
Following Trump’s speech, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas tweeted: “China and Russia must be having a good day.” He continued: “If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can resolve it within NATO. Tariffs risk impoverishing Europe and the United States even further and undermining our shared prosperity.”
Kallas warns against ‘distraction’ by dispute[ing] “It has distracted us from our core mission of helping end Russia’s war against Ukraine.”
Danish foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was in Washington last week for talks on Greenland, said Trump’s statement was a surprise after “constructive” meetings with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “The purpose of the increased military presence in Greenland that the President mentioned is to increase security in the Arctic,” Rasmussen wrote.
Trump’s latest threat underscores the seemingly impossible task of allies to appease Trump without ceding Greenland to the United States. While Trump criticized the motives of countries sending troops to Greenland to improve security, he also mocked Denmark for not doing enough to defend the region. “China and Russia want Greenland and there is nothing Denmark can do about it. There are currently two dog sleds as guards, one was added recently,” he wrote.
Denmark announced last week that it would increase its military presence on the island, while troops from seven other countries targeted by tariffs traveled to Greenland on a brief scoping mission designed in part to show the United States that European NATO members are serious about the security of the Arctic.
A former official of the transatlantic alliance said the threats represented an “existential crisis” for NATO. Robert Pszczel, now a senior researcher at the Center for Oriental Studies in Warsaw, wrote about X: “It is no longer possible or desirable for NATO to pretend that it is not dealing with an existential crisis.
“The current US administration’s threats to its allies [US] and the use of economic blackmail are direct violations of articles one and two of the North Atlantic Treaty,” he wrote, citing sections of the agreement on the peaceful resolution of disputes between allies and the promotion of “peaceful and friendly international relations.”
Bernd Lange, chairman of the European Parliament’s Trade Committee, said the EU should activate its anti-repression instrument, a law that allows wide-ranging economic sanctions in response to hostile actions by another state.
Originally conceived as a response to China, the anti-pressure tool allows the EU to take wide-ranging punitive measures, such as tariffs or investment restrictions, against a country seeking to apply economic pressure.
German Social Democrat Lange said Trump was using trade as a tool of political pressure, adding: “The EU cannot continue business as usual.”
