A hardening mood across Europe
Confronted with rising tensions over Greenland, Europe is ditching its softly-softly approach to Trump. Something in Europe has snapped.
Donald Trump doubled down again on Monday night in his insistence that the US “has to have” Greenland for national security reasons.
He predicted that Europe’s leaders aren’t “gonna push back too much”. But that’s not the plan they have in mind when their paths cross with the US president at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.
Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark – a member of the EU and of Nato.
President Trump is now leaning heavily on Denmark’s allies in both those organisations to abandon Copenhagen and let the US take control of Greenland, or face punitive taxes on all their exports to the United States.
It’s a horror scenario for European economies, which are already in the doldrums, especially those reliant on exporting to the US like Germany’s car industry and Italy’s luxury goods market.
On Monday Germany’s finance minister said “we will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed,” after an emergency meeting ahead of the WEF with his French counterpart.
From diplomacy to confrontation
The Trump threats landed like a slap in the face of European governments, who (separately, in the case of the EU and the UK) had only just settled tariff deals with the US president last year.
“We’re living through uncharted territories. We’ve never seen this before. An ally, a friend of 250 years, is considering using tariffs… as a geopolitical weapon,” said France’s Finance Minister Roland Lescure.
His German counterpart Lars Klingbeil added: “A line has been crossed… You’ll understand that today I’m not saying exactly what will happen. But one thing must be clear: Europe must be prepared.”
All of a sudden, the softly-softly approach to Trump, that Europe’s leaders had clearly favoured since he returned for a second term to the White House, seems to have passed its sell-by date.
Europe’s good cop, bad cop approach
It’s too early to read the last rites on transatlantic relations altogether but the EU, at least, is hoping to approach the US president in Switzerland this Wednesday at the Global Economic Forum “speaking softly, while carrying a big stick”.
Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt believed that, to achieve your goals, you need diplomacy backed by credible power. And Europe now seems to be adopting a good cop, bad cop approach.
European leaders are telling President Trump they’ll support him in prioritising Arctic security, so there’s no need for him to go it alone over Greenland.
At the same time, EU diplomats have let it be known they’re considering imposing €93 billion (£80 billion) worth of tariffs on US goods or even restricting the access of American businesses, possibly including banks and high tech companies, to the bloc’s massive single market, if Trump goes ahead with his “Greenland tariffs” as they’ve become known.
These retaliatory measures would most likely have a knock-on effect on US consumers too.
European Union investors have a massive presence in nearly all 50 US states and are said to be responsible for employing 3.4 million Americans.
The EU has a weak voice on the world stage of international diplomacy. The bloc is made up of 27 often bickering countries. But it has huge clout when it comes to the global economy and trade, where decisions are largely taken by the European Commission on behalf of EU single market members. The European Union is the world’s biggest trader of goods and services, accounting for nearly 16% of world trade in 2024.
So, Brussels is crossing its fingers that President Trump will climb down from from his maximalist position and negotiate a compromise solution, if he realises that he may end up gaining an island (Greenland) but he’ll probably lose close allies (Europe), and be seen as responsible for US consumer costs going up (because of EU retaliatory tariffs).
“Our priority is to engage, not escalate,” EU Commission deputy spokesperson Olof Gill said on Monday.
“Trump is forcing the Europeans to grow a spine,” says Niclas Poitiers, an economist and expert in international trade at the Brussels-based Bruegel think-tank.
“[While] the damage of [Trump’s] tariffs is very manageable for Europe… the much bigger question here is not economic but security and foreign policy.
“The EU cannot afford not to react.”
Trust in US security guarantees
But on Monday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared less than impressed.
Speaking in Davos, he painted a picture of a US president with his mind set: “The president is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States. We are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to anyone else.”
European tariff retaliation would be “unwise”, he warned. And here Europe feels stuck. Damned if it takes action. Damned if it doesn’t.
Some in Europe worry that if they are now more confrontational with Trump, they risk alienating the US even further.
And the brutal truth is: Europe needs Washington to secure a sustainable peace deal for Ukraine and for its own continental security. Despite pledging more defence-spending, Europe is still heavily reliant on the US.
While also reiterating his support for Danish and Greenlandic sovereignty, Sir Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, said it was in the UK’s “national interest that we continue to work with the Americans when it comes to defence, to security, and to intelligence.”
“Our nuclear deterrence is our foremost weapon. A deterrent when it comes to securing the safety of everybody in the United Kingdom is my primary duty and that requires us to have a good relationship with the United States.”
But, if Europe continues to try to “manage” President Trump, rather than stand up to him, when he is threatening the sovereignty of his fellow Nato ally Denmark, then the continent risks looking seriously weak.
On X on Monday the EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas wrote, “We have no interest to pick a fight, but we will hold our ground”.
Global power shifts and uneasy alliances
Watching all this from the sidelines is not only Russia, but China. In their eyes the West is now unravelling.
China hopes Donald Trump’s apparent fickleness with his allies may make Beijing appear a more stable partner and drive more international trade its way.
Canada, which President Trump had threatened to make the 51st state of the US, has just agreed to a limited trade deal with Beijing.
The US president has also shown little regard for multilateral institutions like Nato and the United Nations.
Questions have also been raised about the Board of Peace that President Trump is establishing, which France has already declined to join.
Relations strained but not broken
Transatlantic relations are damaged but not broken.
Donald Trump continues to speak with European leaders and Nato’s secretary general, and lines of communication remain open.
Ultimately, if Europeans want to cut through with Donald Trump, they will need unity – across the EU, Nato, and with the UK playing a key role.
But with domestic pressures mounting, and the risk of a transatlantic trade war looming, maintaining a united front over Greenland will be difficult.
Also read: Trump reacts to Nobel Peace Prize snub with Greenland claim
For more videos and updates, check out our YouTube channel
