EU ambassadors were meeting in Brussels after the European Union called an extraordinary general meeting in response to Trump\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
The bloc clinched a deal with Washington in July for most EU exports to face a 15% US levy. It was unclear how Trump\u2019s threatened tariffs would work against that deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe that this agreement is possible in the current situation,\u201d German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told ARD television.<\/p>\n
Aides to French President Emmanuel Macron said he would ask the EU to activate a never-before-used \u201canti-coercion instrument\u201d against Washington if Trump makes good on his additional tariffs.<\/p>\n
This measure allows for curbing imports of goods and services into the EU, a market of 27 countries with a combined population of 450 million.<\/p>\n
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to seize Greenland since returning to the White House for a second term. <\/p>\n
His rhetoric towards that goal has hardened since he ordered a military operation against Venezuela early this month to capture its leader, Nicolas Maduro.<\/p>\n
\u2018Blackmail\u2019 <\/p>\n
Trump and his administration have argued that Greenland coming under US rule would serve American \u201cnational security\u201d.<\/p>\n
He and his aides have also argued that Denmark \u2013 although a Nato ally \u2013 would be unable to defend Greenland should Russia or China ever seek to invade.<\/p>\n
Denmark and several of its European Nato allies responded by recently sending small numbers of military personnel to Greenland for an exercise, to which the United States was also invited.<\/p>\n
Thousands of people in Greenland and in Denmark have held protests to declare that they did not want the Arctic island to fall under US control.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake America Go Away\u201d read the wording on caps worn by many of the protesters, riffing on Trump\u2019s \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d slogan.<\/p>\n
Trump responded with a threat to slap goods coming into the US from Britain, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland with 10% tariffs starting February 1.<\/p>\n
They would rise to 25% from June 1 \u201cuntil such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland\u201d, Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.<\/p>\n
Even Italy\u2019s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Trump\u2019s closest European allies baulked at the threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that imposing new sanctions today would be a mistake,\u201d she told journalists during a trip to Seoul.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it \u201ccompletely wrong\u201d, and said he planned to discuss the situation with Trump \u201cat the earliest opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel, meanwhile, called Trump\u2019s threat an \u201cinexplicable\u201d form of \u201cblackmail\u201d.<\/p>\n
Trade war fear <\/p>\n
France\u2019s Agricultural Minister Annie Genevard warned that tariffs would hurt Washington, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this escalation of tariffs, [Trump] has a lot to lose as well, as do his own farmers and industrialists,\u201d she told broadcasters Europe 1 and CNews.<\/p>\n
Norway, targeted by Trump\u2019s tariffs threat but, like Britain, not an EU member, said it was not currently looking at retaliation against US goods.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one needs to stop and think so that a trade war can be averted that would lead to a downward spiral. Nobody would win,\u201d Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told NRK television.<\/p>\n
The trip by Denmark Foreign Minister Rasmussen trip to Norway at the weekend was one stop on a tour that will also take in Britain and Sweden, to discuss the alliance\u2019s Arctic security policy.<\/p>\n
-Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU ambassadors were meeting in Brussels after the European Union called an extraordinary general meeting in response to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1975,1863,8459,2178,2024,6446,8560,305,42,4508,26477,43,32361,1523,2572,7192,41401,583,7677,165,1555,45666,40,38,41,39,29725,2179,19096,1455,3608],"class_list":["post-240071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-at","tag-back","tag-designs","tag-donald","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-greenland","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-hits","tag-leaders","tag-news","tag-opposition","tag-over","tag-president","tag-risk","tag-slammed","tag-tariff","tag-tariffs","tag-their","tag-threat","tag-ties","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-transatlantic","tag-trump","tag-trumps","tag-warning","tag-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}