{"id":418382,"date":"2026-01-19T01:05:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418382\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T01:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T01:05:10","slug":"european-nations-warn-of-dangerous-downward-spiral-after-trump-threatens-tariffs-over-greenland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/418382\/","title":{"rendered":"European nations warn of ‘dangerous downward spiral’ after Trump threatens tariffs over Greenland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

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European Union ambassadors reached a broad agreement on Sunday to intensify efforts to dissuade U.S. President Donald Trump from imposing tariffs on European allies, while also preparing retaliatory measures should the duties go ahead, EU diplomats said. <\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump announced earlier this weekend<\/a> that\u00a0eight countries \u2014 EU members Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, along with Britain and Norway \u2014 will face a 10 per cent tariff\u00a0for opposing American control of Greenland.<\/p>\n

EU leaders are set to discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($150 billion Cdn) of U.S. imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.<\/p>\n

The other is the so far never used “Anti-Coercion Instrument” (ACI), which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the U.S. has a \u200bsurplus with the bloc, including in digital services. <\/p>\n

The tariff package appeared to command broader support as a first response than anti-coercion measures, where the picture was currently “very mixed,” according to an EU source.<\/p>\n

WATCH | Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on countries that didn’t support his plan:\"\"<\/p>\n

Trump threatens tariffs against European nations over Greenland support<\/p>\n

The United States will impose increasing tariffs on several European countries until the U.S. is able to purchase Greenland, President Donald Trump announced on his Truth Social platform on Saturday. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland would face the tariff, Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s threat sets up a potentially dangerous test of U.S. partnerships in Europe. Several European countries have sent troops to Greenland in recent days, saying they are there for\u00a0Arctic security training.\u00a0Trump\u2019s announcement came Saturday as\u00a0thousands of Greenlanders\u00a0were wrapping up a protest outside the U.S. Consulate in the\u00a0capital, Nuuk.<\/p>\n

“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the eight affected countries said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a written statement she was heartened by the consistent messages from the rest of the continent, adding: “Europe will not be blackmailed.” <\/p>\n

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\u00a0NATO ally\u00a0Denmark that he regards as critical to U.S. national security. The eight countries that signed the statement would face the tariff.<\/p>\n

\"AA Danish serviceman climbs out of a hatch on the bow of the military vessel HDMS Knud Rasmussen of the Royal Danish Navy docked in Nuuk, Greenland, on Saturday. (Evgeniy Maloletka\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said China and Russia will benefit from the divisions between the U.S. and Europe. She added in a post on social media: \u201cIf Greenland\u2019s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO. Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity.”<\/p>\n

Prime Minister\u00a0Mark Carney\u00a0says he is \u201cconcerned\u201d about U.S. \u201cescalation\u201d on its push to buy Greenland after it threatened to impose tariffs on the eight European nations opposed to the plan.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Doha, Qatar<\/a>, Carney said Canada will always support sovereignty and territorial integrity and that the future of Greenland is up to its people and Denmark.<\/p>\n

The prime minister said Greenland is protected through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that Canada is committed to working with alliance partners in increasing Arctic defence capabilities.<\/p>\n

Carney said he will share this message with Trump if he sees the president in Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum this coming week.<\/p>\n

\"ThreePrime Minister Mark Carney, second from left, walks with Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad bin Sherida Al Kaabi, left, and Karim Morcos, Canada’s ambassador to Qatar, middle right, as he arrives in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday. (Sean Kilpatrick\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

The tariff announcement even drew blowback from Trump\u2019s populist allies in Europe.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s right-wing prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who is considered one of Trump\u2019s closest allies on the continent, said Sunday she had spoken to him about the tariffs, which she described as “a mistake.”<\/p>\n

The deployment to Greenland of small numbers of troops by some European countries was misunderstood by Washington, Meloni told reporters during a two-day visit to South Korea. She said the deployment was not a move against the U.S. but aimed to provide security against “other actors” that she didn\u2019t name.<\/p>\n

Jordan Bardella, president of Marine Le Pen\u2019s far-right National Rally party in France and also a European Parliament lawmaker, posted that the EU should suspend last year\u2019s\u00a0tariff deal\u00a0with the U.S., describing Trump\u2019s threats as “commercial blackmail.”<\/p>\n

Trump also achieved the rare feat of uniting Britain\u2019s main political parties \u2014 including the hard-right Reform UK party \u2014 all of whom criticized the tariff threat.<\/p>\n

“We don\u2019t always agree with the U.S. government and in this case we certainly don\u2019t. These tariffs will hurt us,” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a longtime champion and ally of Trump, wrote on social media. He stopped short of criticizing Trump\u2019s designs on Greenland.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who leads the centre-left Labour Party, said the tariff announcement was “completely wrong” and that his government would “be pursuing this directly with the U.S. administration.”<\/p>\n

The foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway are also expected to address the crisis on Sunday in Oslo during a news conference.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-418382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}