Trump hits Denmark, 7 allies with tariffs
WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA—President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he would charge a 10-percent import tax starting in February on goods from eight European nations because of their opposition to American control of Greenland, setting up a potentially dangerous test of US partnerships in Europe.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland would face the tariff, Trump said in a social media post while at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida. The rate would climb to 25 percent on June 1 if no deal was in place for “the complete and total purchase of Greenland” by the United States, he said.
The Republican president appeared to indicate that he was using the tariffs as leverage to force talks with Denmark and other European countries over the status of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) ally Denmark that he regards as critical to US national security.
“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and or any of these countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Problematic rupture
The tariff threat could mark a problematic rupture between Trump and America’s longtime Nato partners, further straining an alliance that dates to 1949 and provides a collective degree of security to Europe and North America. Trump has repeatedly tried to use trade penalties to bend allies and rivals alike to his will, generating investment commitments from some nations and pushback from others, notably China.
Trump is scheduled to travel on Tuesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he likely will run into the European leaders he just threatened with tariffs that would start in little more than two weeks.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said Trump’s move was a “surprise” given the “constructive meeting” with top US officials this week in Washington.
‘Downward spiral’
The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, said in a joint statement that tariffs “would undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.” They said Europe would remain “committed to upholding its sovereignty.”
There are immediate questions about how the White House could try to implement the tariffs because the European Union is a single economic zone in terms of trading, according to a European diplomat who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. It was unclear, too, how Trump could act under US law, though he could cite emergency economic powers that are currently subject to a US Supreme Court challenge.
Retaliation
Trump has long said he thinks the United States should own the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which has a population of about 57,000 and whose defense is provided by Denmark. He intensified his calls a day after the military operation to oust Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro earlier this month.
The president indicated the tariffs were retaliation for what appeared to be the deployment of symbolic levels of troops from the European countries to Greenland, which he has said was essential for the “Golden Dome” missile defense system for the United States. He has also argued that Russia and China might try to take over the island.
1951 defense pact
The United States already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement. Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, the Danish foreign minister has said. That base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the United States and Nato.
Resistance has steadily built in Europe to Trump’s ambitions, even as several countries on the continent agreed to his 15-percent tariffs last year in order to preserve an economic and security relationship with Washington.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in a social media post, seemed to equate the tariff threat to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
“No intimidation or threats will influence us, whether in Ukraine, Greenland or anywhere else in the world when we are faced with such situations,” Macron said in a translated post on X (formerly Twitter).
Biggest protest
Earlier Saturday, hundreds of people in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, braved near-freezing temperatures, rain and icy streets to march in a rally in support of their own self-governance.
Thousands of people also marched through Copenhagen, many of them carrying Greenland’s flag. Some held signs with slogans such as “Make America Smart Again” and “Hands Off.”
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