- Italy’s PM calls Trump’s tariffs threats “mistake”.
- Ireland says Trump’s stance deeply regrettable.
- Macron asks EU to activate “anti-coercion instrument”.
The countries targeted by US President Donald Trump’s threat of tariffs over their opposition to his designs on Greenland will “stand united” in their response, they said in a joint statement Sunday.
“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden said.
“We will continue to stand united and coordinated in our response. We are committed to upholding our sovereignty,” they said.
Ireland’s Foreign Affairs Minister earlier described the tariffs being threatened by Trump over European allies’ stance on Greenland as “completely unacceptable”.
The decision “is completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable,” said Helen McEntee”.
“Ireland has been crystal clear that the future of Greenland is a matter to be determined by Denmark and by the Greenlandic people, in line with well-established democratic principles and international law,” she added.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron’s team said that he will ask the European Union to activate its powerful “anti-coercion instrument” if the US imposes tariffs in the standoff over Greenland.
The bloc’s weapon — never used before and dubbed its trade “bazooka” — allows for curbing imports of goods and services, and has been invoked as a way to push back over tech and trade, and now the Danish territory the US president wants to acquire.
Italy’s prime minister called Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on opponents of his plan to seize Greenland a “mistake”, adding she had told him her views.
“I believe that imposing new sanctions today would be a mistake,” Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni told journalists during a trip to Seoul.
“I spoke to Donald Trump a few hours ago and told him what I think, and I spoke to the Nato secretary general, who confirmed that Nato is beginning to work on this issue.”
However, the far-right prime minister — a Trump ally in Europe — sought to downplay the conflict, telling journalists “there has been a problem of understanding and communication” between Europe and the US related to the Arctic island.
Trump has threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on all goods sent to the US from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland over their objections to his moves.
Meloni said it was up to Nato to take an active role in the growing crisis.
“Nato is the place where we must try to organise together deterrents against interference that may be hostile in a territory that is clearly strategic, and I believe that the fact that Nato has begun to work on this is a good initiative,” she told reporters.
Meloni said that “from the American point of view, the message that had come from this side of the Atlantic was not clear”.
“It seems to me that the risk is that the initiatives of some European countries were interpreted as anti-American, which was clearly not the intention.”
Meloni did not specify to what exactly she was referring.
Trump claims the United States needs Greenland for its national security.
