President Donald Trump’s dramatic demand that the United States be allowed to buy Greenland — backed by a threat of punitive tariffs — has jolted transatlantic relations and pushed European capitals toward a coordinated response. On January 17 Mr. Trump announced on social media that, unless Copenhagen agreed to a “comprehensive” sale of Greenland to Washington, the United States would levy a 10 percent tariff on imports from eight European countries from February 1, rising to 25 percent from June 1.
European governments reacted swiftly and publicly. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement condemning the tariff threat as damaging to the transatlantic bond and potentially capable of provoking a dangerous tit-for-tat spiral. The statement stressed unity in defending sovereignty while reiterating that strengthening Arctic security remains a shared NATO priority.
The diplomatic dispute has spilled into military posturing. Several European states have announced deployments to Greenland to join Denmark’s “Arctic Endurance” exercises, and Germany confirmed that a 13-person reconnaissance detachment recently departed the island. Canada has also drawn up plans to send a small force to participate in allied Arctic manoeuvres, pending approval from its prime minister.
Brussels is preparing economic counters of its own. Officials say the European Union is considering reactivating a previously drafted list of retaliatory tariffs covering roughly €93 billion of U.S. exports or imposing restrictions on American firms’ access to the single market. That list, assembled last year but shelved to avoid an all-out trade war, is now back on the table as EU envoys weigh whether to invoke the bloc’s anti-coercion instrument.
European diplomats say the aim is twofold: to provide leaders with bargaining leverage ahead of any face-to-face meeting with the U.S. president at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and to use the public threat of retaliation to exert bipartisan pressure inside the United States. Behind closed doors, officials use blunt language to characterise the White House approach as coercive, but they publicly call for calm and offer the president a path to step back from escalation.
The row matters far beyond a bilateral spat over an Arctic territory. Greenland sits astride emerging polar sea lanes and untapped mineral resources and hosts strategic U.S. military infrastructure; control and influence over the island have implications for NATO posture, Arctic governance and great-power competition with Russia and China. Using trade tools to extract territorial concessions breaks new ground in economic coercion between allies and raises the prospect of more frequent hybrid disputes in an era of intensified strategic rivalry.
For Brussels and European capitals the challenge is to demonstrate unity without letting economic retaliation spiral into a broader rupture. For Washington, the episode risks alienating close partners at a time when NATO cohesion and allied support for Arctic deterrence are crucial. The near-term outcome will likely be determined by whether threatened U.S. tariffs are actually imposed on February 1 and by diplomatic manoeuvres around the Davos summit, where Europe hopes to convert the spectre of countermeasures into a political brake on unilateral coercion.