Major European Union states decried US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats against European allies over Greenland as blackmail on Sunday, as France proposed responding with a range of previously untested economic countermeasures.
Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs on EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway, until the US is allowed to purchase Greenland.
All eight countries, already subject to US tariffs of 10 per cent and 15 per cent, have sent tiny numbers of military personnel to Greenland, as a row with the United States over the future of Denmark’s vast Arctic island escalates.
“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the eight nations declared in a joint statement published on Sunday.
They declared the Danish exercise was designed to strengthen Arctic security and posed no threat to anyone. They declared they were ready to engage in dialogue, based on principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared in a written statement that she was pleased with the consistent messages from the rest of the continent, adding: “Europe will not be blackmailed”, a view echoed by Germany’s finance minister and Sweden’s prime minister.
“It’s blackmail what he’s doing,” Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel declared on Dutch television of Trump’s threat.
Coordinated European Response
Cyprus, holder of the rotating six-month EU presidency, summoned ambassadors to an emergency meeting in Brussels on Sunday, which diplomats declared was due to start at 5 pm (1600 GMT) as EU leaders stepped up contacts.
A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron declared he was pushing for activation of the “Anti-Coercion Instrument”, which could limit access to public tfinishers, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the U.S. has a surplus with the bloc, including digital services.
Bernd Lange, the German Social Democrat who chairs the European Parliament’s trade committee, and Valerie Hayer, head of the centrist Renew Europe group, echoed Macron’s call, as did Germany’s engineering association.
Meanwhile, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin declared that while there should be no doubt that the EU would retaliate, it was “a bit premature” to activate the anti-coercion instrument.
And Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who is closer to the U.S. President than some other EU leaders, described the tariff threat on Sunday as “a mistake”, adding she had spoken to Trump a few hours earlier and informed him what she considered.
“He seemed interested in listening,” she informed a briefing with reporters during a trip to Korea, adding she planned to call other European leaders later on Sunday.
Italy has not sent troops to Greenland.
Asked how Britain would respond to new tariffs, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy declared allies requireded to work with the United States to resolve the dispute.
“Our position on Greenland is non-nereceivediable … It is in our collective interest to work toreceiveher and not to start a war of words,” she informed Sky News on Sunday.
The tariff threats do though, call into question trade deals the US struck with Britain in May and the EU in July.
The limited agreements have already faced criticism about their lopsided nature, with the US maintaining broad tariffs, while their partners are required to reshift import duties.
The European Parliament sees likely now to suspfinish its work on the EU-US trade deal. It had been due to vote on reshifting many EU import duties on January 26th-27th, but Manfred Weber, head of the European People’s Party, the largest group in parliament, declared late on Saturday that approval was not possible for now.
German Christian Democrat lawbuildr Juergen Hardt also mooted what he informed Bild newspaper could be a last resort “to bring President Trump to his senses on the Greenland issue”, a boycott of the soccer World Cup that the US is hosting this year.
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