Trump is seen as speaking like a ‘gangster’ and using Greenland as a distraction.
JAKARTA – After United States President Donald Trump posted his plan to impose new tariffs on Europe on Saturday, reactions came swiftly and sharply.
As reported by YahooFinance, Trump said the US would apply a 10 per cent tariff on eight European countries that blocked the US attempt to purchase Greenland. The tariff will take effect on 1 February and will apply to all goods shipped to the US. Duties on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland will rise to 25 per cent on 1 June if no agreement is reached.
“China and Russia want Greenland, and there is nothing Denmark can do to stop it. Right now they only have two dog sleds for protection, one of which was just added,” Trump wrote. “Only the United States, under PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP, can play this game, and very successfully!”
Those countries — Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, the UK and Norway — were already subject to US tariffs of between 10 and 15 per cent.
“Tariff threats damage transatlantic relations and risk triggering a dangerous downward spiral,” the eight countries said in a joint statement on Sunday, as EU members prepared to meet to discuss possible countermeasures.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen praised the unified message from other European nations, saying Europe would not be blackmailed, a view echoed by Germany’s finance minister and Sweden’s prime minister.
According to Reuters, the eight European countries are likely to impose tariffs worth 93 billion euros (US$107.71 billion) on the US or restrict American companies’ access to the bloc’s market in response to Trump’s threat against NATO allies who oppose his campaign to take over Greenland. The Financial Times, citing officials involved in preparations for meetings in Switzerland, reported that retaliatory measures were being drafted to give European leaders leverage in key discussions with Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday whether Trump’s stance toward Europe was merely a negotiating tactic. Bessent appeared to suggest that the president would not shift his position.
“Europeans project weakness, the US projects strength,” he said. “The president believes enhanced security is impossible without Greenland becoming part of the US.”
On Saturday, protesters gathered in Denmark and Greenland, with thousands in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, chanting “Kalaallit Nunaat” — the island’s name in Greenlandic — as they marched toward the US Embassy.
The protests followed comments by former NATO chief and former Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who said Trump was speaking like a “gangster” and using Greenland as a weapon of mass distraction from the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court has passed up its first two opportunities this year to issue a ruling on the implications and legality of Trump’s global tariffs on trade partners, without taking any action.
The court heard arguments in early November. Both conservative‑leaning and liberal‑leaning justices raised sceptical questions about the method used by the president to impose his broadest tariffs. Trump enacted the tariffs under a 1977 law intended for national emergencies.
The Trump administration also appealed to the courts last year, and in recent weeks Trump has repeatedly voiced concern about the ruling, saying that losing the ability to impose tariffs on other countries would be a devastating blow to the US. On Monday, he went further.
“If the Supreme Court rules against the United States in this National Security jackpot, WE ARE FINISHED!” he wrote on social media. (YS/LM)
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