- Tariffs will remain until the US buys Greenland: Trump.
- European nations reiterate their support for Denmark.
- British Prime Minister Starmer calls the US move “completely wrong”.
US President Donald Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of rising tariffs on European allies until Washington is allowed to buy Greenland, escalating a dispute over the future of Denmark’s large Arctic island.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said an additional 10% import tariff will go into effect on February 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the UK – all already subject to tariffs imposed by Trump.
Those tariffs would increase to 25% on June 1 and would continue until an agreement was reached for the United States to buy Greenland, Trump wrote.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that he will settle for nothing less than ownership of Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark. Leaders from both Denmark and Greenland have insisted that the island is not for sale and does not want to be part of the United States.
Safety, minerals
The president has repeatedly said that Greenland is vital to American security because of its strategic location and large mineral deposits, and he has not ruled out using force to take it. European nations sent military personnel to the island this week at Denmark’s request.
“These countries, playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable,” Trump wrote.
Demonstrators in Denmark and Greenland demonstrated on Saturday against Trump’s demands and called for the territory to be left to decide its own future.
The countries named by Trump on Saturday have backed Denmark and warned that the US military seizure of a territory in NATO could collapse the military alliance that Washington leads.
“The president’s announcement comes as a surprise,” says Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen in a statement.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was unusually forthright in his condemnation of Trump’s threat, saying on X that his country would raise the issue directly with Washington.
“Applying tariffs on allies to pursue the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong,” Starmer said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa said in separate but identical statements on X that the EU stood in “full solidarity” with Denmark and Greenland.
“Tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. Europe will remain united, coordinated and committed to maintaining its sovereignty,” they said.
Officials from Norway, Sweden, France and Germany on Saturday reiterated their support for Denmark, saying tariffs should not be part of Greenland’s discussions.
Cyprus, which currently holds the EU presidency, said it had called an emergency meeting of ambassadors from the union’s 27 countries on Sunday.
Trade agreements threatened?
Saturday’s threat could derail tentative agreements Trump made last year with the EU and Britain. The agreements included basic duties of 15% on imports from Europe and 10% on most British goods.
“The biggest danger, it seems to me, is his decision to treat some EU countries differently than others,” said William Reinsch, a trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “I’m not surprised [….] It may well convince the European Parliament that it is pointless to approve the trade agreement with the US, since Trump is already circumventing it.”
Trump floated the general idea of tariffs over Greenland on Friday without citing a legal basis for doing so. Tariffs have become his weapon of choice in trying to force US adversaries and allies to comply with his demands.
He said this week that he would impose 25% tariffs on any country that trades with Iran after that country cracked down on anti-government protests, although there has been no official White House documentation of the policy on its website, or information on the legal authority Trump would use.
The U.S. Supreme Court has heard arguments about the legality of Trump’s sweeping tariffs, and any decision by the top U.S. judicial body would have major implications for the global economy and U.S. presidential powers.
The intrusive presence of China and Russia makes Greenland crucial to American security interests, Trump has said. Danish and other European officials have pointed out that Greenland is already covered by NATO’s collective security pact.
An American military base, Pituffik Space Base, is already in Greenland with around 200 personnel, and an agreement from 1951 allows the USA to deploy as many forces as it wants on Danish territory.
That has led many European officials to conclude that Trump is motivated more by a desire to expand American territory than by security concerns.
“China and Russia will have a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among allies,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on X in response to Trump’s threat.
Some US senators also resigned. “Continuing down this path is bad for America, bad for American businesses and bad for America’s allies,” Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, bipartisan chair of the Senate Nato Observer Group, said in a statement.
Europeans should not react hastily to Trump’s tariff threat, said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at ING Research.
“Just ignore it and wait and see,” Brzeski told Reuters. “Europe has shown that it will not accept everything, and so the tariffs are actually already a step forward in relation to the threatened military invasion.”
