Europe may have reached its breaking point with Trump over Greenland tariffs

Has Europe had enough?

After more than a year of cautious diplomacy, high-stakes blandishments and efforts to keep transatlantic cooperation intact, European leaders now find themselves facing perhaps the sharpest challenge ever from the White House.

President Donald Trump said Saturday he would impose drastic new tariffs on eight key European allies and increase them. unless Denmark agrees to cede Greenland, resurrecting one of its most provocative foreign policy obsessions as it threatens the territory of a NATO ally.

The ultimatum marks the latest escalation in a trend that has seen Europe repeatedly push back under the second Trump administration, weighing economic and security ties with the United States against a White House increasingly willing to use trade as a weapon against its closest partners.

But this time the response was more lively.

European leaders quickly called an emergency meeting on Sunday, condemning the tariff threats as unacceptable and warning of serious consequences for transatlantic relations.

The episode has raised new questions about how long Europe is willing to absorb pressure from Washington on behalf of a NATO alliance that appears to be bursting at the seams.

Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland face new 10% tariffs “until “an agreement is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland,” the US leader said on Saturday, with tariffs increasing to 25% if an agreement is not reached by June 1.

It’s a familiar position for European leaders, who spent much of last spring negotiating with Washington as Trump sought to reshape global trade through tariffs. The United States already has a framework agreement with the European Union capping tariffs at 15%, as well as a separate agreement with the United Kingdom limiting tariffs to 10%.

Trump did not say whether the new threats of tariffs would undo those agreements or if they would be imposed on top of them.

But the latest threats have sparked signs of weariness and impatience with the United States, as European leaders, long reluctant to confront Trump directly, now appear united in defending Danish territory and resisting what they see as an unacceptable escalation.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has often served as an intermediary between Washington and Europe in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, while the United Kingdom was the first country to reach a deal to reverse or reduce some of Trump’s previous tariffs.

But Starmer said Saturday that Trump’s plans to impose tariffs on European allies were “completely wrong,” a rare departure from what appeared to be a policy of U.S. appeasement that drew criticism from lawmakers in his own country.

“Applying tariffs to allies to ensure the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong,” he said. “We will of course continue this approach directly with the American administration. »

French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently issued dire warnings about collapsing U.S.-European relations, said “no amount of intimidation” will persuade European nations to change course on Greenland. Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson warned that the EU would not be “blackmailed” by Trump, while Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said “threats have no place among allies.”

In a joint statement, the eight countries facing tariffs said Sunday that “tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk falling into a dangerous downward spiral.”

“We will continue to remain united and coordinated in our response,” the statement said, on the eve of an emergency EU meeting.

Trump has stood firm on his belief that the United States needs Greenland for national security, and has repeatedly asserted that Russia and China would otherwise attempt to seize Greenland.

“There is nothing Denmark can do about it,” Trump wrote, calling Danish defense capabilities “a “two dog sleds for protection.”

European allies, for their part, argue that any threats to Greenland’s security must be addressed jointly. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen will visit Norway, the United Kingdom and Sweden over the next five days, the ministry announced on Sunday, noting that the main topic will be the security situation in the Arctic.

“What our countries have in common is that we all agree that NATO’s role in the Arctic needs to be strengthened, and I look forward to discussing how to do this,” a statement said.

The president’s latest threat has called into question Europe’s strategy of “cheering on Mr. Trump,” Michael Bociurkiw, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, told NBC News on Sunday, noting that Trump’s latest threats have elevated the situation from a “slingshot to a bazooka.”

Even if European nations were to reach some sort of agreement with Trump, he told NBC News, “he’s well known for changing his mind or leveling the playing field, and that’s what they need to understand.”

Bociurkiw said Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who announced lower tariffs with China last week after meeting with its leader Xi Jinping, had done the “smart thing” by going to Beijing and “risking Mr. Trump’s wrath.”

“This shows that he is acting unilaterally,” he added. “I think this is the path that Europe must follow.”

While Europe treaded carefully with Trump in part to avoid disrupting negotiations over the Ukraine war, his ultimatum on Greenland “makes no difference” in that calculus, one analyst told NBC News, because “no one had any confidence in the United States” to deliver on it.

“Confirmation that the United States does not have a common security vision with Europe does not change Ukraine’s position,” said Keir Giles, a senior consultant at Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

“The threats and promises we hear from the Europeans warning the United States that this could mean the end of NATO are ineffective because it is not something current American leaders like,” he added.

Ukraine’s defense, he said, “rests on Europe’s recognition of its responsibility, rather than on the role the United States might have played before.”

However, in a sign that the two disputes could eventually become entangled, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez warned on Sunday that a US invasion of Greenland “would make Vladimir Putin the happiest man in the world”.