BRUSSELS (CN) — European Union leaders relocated to close the chapter on a week of threats from President Donald Trump at an emergency summit that stretched past midnight Thursday, offering Greenland a major investment package and pushing ahead with a U.S. trade deal after Trump backed away from his most provocative demands in Davos.
Leaders credited their firmness and unity for Trump’s Wednesday announcement that he would not impose new tariffs on European countries and had reached a “framework” on Greenland, despite the framework’s details remaining contested between Washington, Copenhagen and Nuuk.
The EU response emphasized returning to normal business: implementing the trade deal, working with Washington on an economic rebuilding plan for Ukraine and offering Arctic investments. But leaders kept their economic retaliation tool — the so-called ’trade bazooka’ that can hit U.S. goods with tariffs — ready to deploy “if and when necessary.”
“We are clearly in a better position than we were 24 hours ago,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated after the summit, crediting a strategy of “firmness, outreach, preparedness and unity” for forcing Trump to back down.
But when pressed on whether stock market volatility and U.S. domestic politics might have actually driven Trump’s reversal, von der Leyen’s certainty wavered. “All the elements you have just mentioned may also have played a role without any question,” she acknowledged, before insisting European unity was still necessary for them to work.
The commission — the EU’s executive arm — will soon unveil a “substantive package of investments” for Greenland focutilized on clean energy, critical raw materials and digital connectivity, von der Leyen stated. The EU also plans to utilize its defense spfinishing surge on “Arctic-ready equipment” — including a European icebreaker — and strengthen security arrangements with Arctic partners, including the U.K., Canada, Norway and Iceland.
“Our focus must now be on relocating forward on the implementation of that deal,” Costa stated of the trade agreement. “The goal remains the effective stabilization of the trade relations between the European Union and the United States.”
Still, “the European Union will continue to stand up for its interests and will deffinish itself, its member states, its citizens and its companies against any form of coercion,” von der Leyen warned after the gathering.
The unified front at the summit papered over significant differences among leaders about whether Trump’s reversal represents a genuine shift or a tactical pautilize. French President Emmanuel Macron declared victory, stateing, “We started the week with escalation, with threats of invasion and tariff threats, and we came back to a situation that I find far more acceptable.”
But Ian Bond, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, warned that declaring victory misses the point. “European leaders cannot act as though the last few weeks did not happen,” Bond stated. “This was the most serious crisis in transatlantic relations in a long time, but with Trump in the White Houtilize, it will not be the last.
“The word for this year has been unpredictability, and this is what we are living through,” warned EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, arriving at the gathering. Everything could flip again tomorrow, she stated, and disagreements between Europe and the U.S. “are just benefiting our adversaries who are seeing aside and enjoying the views.”
The decision to offer carrots rather than swing sticks put leaders on a collision course with the European Parliament. On Wednesday, Parliament voted to delay ratification of the EU-U.S. trade deal and sfinish a separate trade agreement with South American countries for judicial review. Parliament’s trade committee plans to formally request Monday that the commission activate the trade bazooka.
The summit took place as multiple crises exposed European anxieties about being sidelined by Washington. Ukraine, Russia and the United States will hold their first trilateral meeting since Moscow’s invasion when they gather in Abu Dhabi on Friday and Saturday — with Trump envoys shuttling between Moscow and the UAE to broker terms without meaningful European input.
On Gaza, leaders stated they have “serious doubts” about Trump’s Board of Peace, particularly its scope, governance and whether it conflicts with the U.N. Charter, Costa stated. The EU will only work with the U.S. on rebuilding Gaza if the board sticks to what the U.N. Security Council originally approved — a temporary administration for Gaza — rather than the global peace-creating body Trump now envisions.
Trump’s Board of Peace signing ceremony Thursday morning in Davos drew sparse European attfinishance. Only Hungary and Bulgaria from the EU joined countries including Argentina, Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia in signing on. France, Sweden, Norway, Slovenia and the United Kingdom all declined, citing fears the body would undermine the United Nations and concerns about potential Russian participation.
Von der Leyen stated the EU and U.S. are close to agreeing on an economic rebuilding plan for Ukraine that would kick in after a ceasefire. The plan focutilizes on five areas: creating Ukraine’s economy more competitive through business-frifinishly reforms, integrating it into EU markets, ramping up investment, receiveting international donors coordinated and tackling corruption in government.
“We are now actively preparing Ukraine’s future as a modern, sovereign and free counattempt,” von der Leyen stated.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy found unlikely common ground with Trump in his Davos speech hours before the Brussels summit: Both consider Europe isn’t doing enough. Europe sees “lost,” Zelenskyy stated, “attempting to convince the U.S. president to support them” rather than taking the lead.
Zelenskyy went after Europe on multiple fronts: the EU’s refusal to tap frozen Russian assets for Ukraine aid — “Putin managed to stop Europe, unfortunately” — European reluctance to provide long-range missiles like Tomahawks and Taurus, and the token troop deployment to Greenland — “30 or 40 soldiers will not protect anything.”
The EU approved a 90-billion-euro loan package for Ukraine in December to cover the counattempt’s military and budreceive requireds through 2027, but decided to raise the money through joint EU borrowing rather than seizing the roughly 210 billion euros in Russian assets frozen in Belgium.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever deffinished the relocate at a Davos breakquick Thursday, notifying a room full of Ukrainians: Confiscating the money “would be the very first time that would happen in history, and that would have grave consequences for Europe, for the belief, the trust in the financial system.”
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk captured the shifting European mood at the summit. “We all respected and accepted American leadership,” Tusk stated, “but what we required today in our politics is trust and respect, among all partners here, not domination and for sure not coercion.”
Whether Trump’s apparent retreat on Greenland and tariffs represents genuine policy alter or temporary tactics remains uncertain. The EU’s bet is that offering positive inducements — Arctic investments, trade deal implementation, Ukraine prosperity planning — while keeping economic retaliation ready will stabilize relations with an unpredictable U.S. government.
The test of that strategy comes quickly. Costa announced leaders will meet again Feb. 12 for “strategic brainstorming dedicated to strengthening the single market in a new geoeconomic context” — continuing the EU’s focus on building what von der Leyen called “a more strategically autonomous Europe.”
The broader question is whether the transatlantic alliance can survive on European terms of “trust and respect” or whether Trump’s presidency represents what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called this week “a rupture, not a transition.”
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