(Bloomberg) — President Donald Trump’s fixation on Greenland offers a cold reminder to leaders in Europe and other regions: no deal is final.
Trump announced a 10% tariff, which would rise to 25% in June, on eight European countries, including Denmark, for stating they would conduct symbolic NATO exercises in Greenland in response to what they described as U.S. intimidation.
Although it wasn’t certain that the tariffs would take effect, the threat marked a bold escalation and an insult to close U.S. allies, trampling the trade agreement between the United States and the European Union signed just six months earlier at Turnberry, Trump’s resort in Scotland.
Take Advantage of the Stock Market Rise!
European targets reacted quickly. The United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer labeled the tariff threat as “completely wrong.” French President Emmanuel Macron said it was “unacceptable.” Meanwhile, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his country would not be “blackmailed.”
A senior European lawmaker urged suspending the trade truce between the U.S. and the EU sealed with Trump in July, and national ambassadors of the bloc will meet on Sunday to discuss the next steps, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The tariff letter also highlighted several lessons emerging from Trump’s second term: nothing is beyond reach in negotiations, alliances are viewed with suspicion, and power and leverage are decisive.
“Whoever thought the second year would be a year of tariff stability must recognize that this is looking a lot like the first year,” said Josh Lipsky, president of international economics at the Atlantic Council. “There will be a unified reaction. First, because Europe is so united on the Greenland question; second, because of the political price Europe has already paid for the Turnberry agreement.”
The EU is the United States’ largest source of imports
Trump’s tariffs would apply to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland. The announcement came as protests were mounted across Denmark, with firm opposition to any U.S. control of Greenland.
Notably, Trump made the tariff announcement after these countries — some of the United States’ oldest allies and all NATO members — said they would send only a few dozen soldiers to Greenland to participate in a joint exercise.
“We’re not talking about Iran, we’re talking about Denmark,” said Scott Lincicome, trade analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, adding that the measure would irritate “a lot of people.”
Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Jeanne Shaheen issued a joint statement urging the Trump administration to “dial down the threats and dial up diplomacy.”
The co-chairs of a Senate group dedicated to NATO wrote: “Continuing down this path is bad for the United States, bad for American businesses, and bad for US allies.”
It wasn’t clear whether Trump would actually consider invading Greenland, though he has consistently left the possibility open. One of his top aides, speaking on Friday night to Fox News, accused Europe of taking advantage of the U.S. and said Greenland’s fate should reflect who has the power to protect it — even though, as part of Denmark, any attack by an adversary could trigger the alliance’s mutual defense clause, known as Article 5, and a possible U.S. response.
“Denmark is a small country with a small economy and a small army. They cannot defend Greenland,” said the deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller to the network. “To control a territory, you must be able to defend it, to improve it, and to inhabit it. Denmark has failed in all these tests.”
Trump’s demands about Greenland provoke protests across Denmark
Protesters carry Greenland flags during a demonstration in Copenhagen on January 17.
Because Greenland is part of Denmark, Greenland is also “in principle covered by the mutual solidarity clause of Article 42.7 of the Treaty on the European Union,” said this week the European Commission spokesperson, Anita Hipper.
Instead, NATO members now face economic pressure from a bloc member to back a forced seizure of the territory, an extraordinary development even by the standards of Trump’s declared transactionalism.
Turnaround
Until now, European leaders largely tried to placate Trump, striking deals and avoiding confrontation, especially as they work to maintain U.S. military and intelligence backing for Ukraine to deter Russian aggression.
But a move involving Greenland could alter the European Union’s calculations.
Allies had previously concluded that “it was better to appease Trump and move forward than to escalate, and, if you did that, you could give some predictability to businesses and investors,” said Lincicome. “It’s clear that this simply is wrong. The only government so far that seems to have made Trump back down was China, and it did so through fairly aggressive retaliatory actions.”
The tariffs related to Greenland may not take effect—Trump could try to impose them based on a law that the Supreme Court is set to review soon, potentially limiting the powers Trump has used so far to implement tariffs quickly against friends and foes.
Both Lipsky and Lincicome said they believe it is unlikely, given the Supreme Court’s case and other factors, that the tariffs would actually take effect on February 1.
“It’s not impossible, but the odds are low,” Lipsky said. It is also unclear what Europe could concede in a negotiation to obtain a delay, as happened in other tariff disputes. “This is different from a traditional threat.”
The threat drew criticism from retiring Republican Representative Don Bacon, who said Congress should reclaim tariff powers that Trump has concentrated, in addition to predicting impeachment if Trump invaded Greenland.
“I feel it’s the duty of people like me to speak out and say that these threats and the intimidation of an ally are wrong,” Bacon told CNN. “And, in the remote hypothetical that he is serious about invading Greenland, I want to make clear that this would probably be the end of his presidency. Most Republicans know this is morally wrong and would stand up against it.”
Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, called Trump’s latest threat an “useless imperial fantasy” and urged other lawmakers to repudiates it. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would introduce legislation to block Trump from imposing the tariffs.
© 2026 Bloomberg L.P.
