As the sun set over the port of Limassol in Cyprus, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, last Thursday used a familiar formula to describe the US – calling it one of “our allies, our partners”. However, this rhetoric rings hollow in the wake of Donald Trump’s latest move.
Just 24 hours earlier, Denmark, an EU and NATO member state, had warned that the US President was intent on “conquering” Greenland. Trump’s weekend announcement that eight countries supporting Greenland would face tariffs unless there was a deal to sell the territory to the US has dealt another blow to the transatlantic alliance, mocking the notion of the US as Europe’s ally.
The eight affected countries include six EU member states, as well as Norway and the UK, the latter unprotected by the much-vaunted “special relationship”. This suggests that Europe’s strategy of flattering and appeasing the US president has failed.
For critics, a prime example is von der Leyen’s decision to sign a trade deal with Trump that was deeply skewed in favour of the US. While the EU agreed to eliminate tariffs on many US goods, it accepted 15% duties on many products and 50% on steel. After years of the EU extolling its heft as a trade player, the terms of the EU-US trade deal signed at Trump’s Turnberry golf course last July were seen as a humiliation.
Now, that argument is left in ruins, while the 0% tariffs for the US may never be implemented. The Trump administration has succeeded in uniting the European Parliament, from the radical left to the far right, against the agreement. The leader of France’s far-right National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, described Trump’s threats as “commercial blackmail” and said the EU should suspend last summer’s deal.
The unspoken reason for accepting the unequal trade bargain was the hope it would keep the US backing Ukraine to defend itself in its war with Russia, providing capabilities, such as intelligence, which Europe is unable to match after decades of low defence spending. However, Trump may have pushed the EU too far.
Although Greenland left the EU’s predecessor organisation, the European Community, in 1985, acquiescing in the forced sale of the territory of an EU member state would send a disastrous signal about the EU as a geopolitical actor and its commitment to Ukraine.
As European leaders lined up to declare their determination to uphold Danish and Greenlandic sovereignty, there are growing calls to use the EU’s powerful but untested anti-coercion instrument against the US. This regulation, often described as the EU’s “big bazooka”, was originally conceived as a response to Chinese economic pressure, and would allow the EU to impose sweeping restrictions on US goods and services, suspend investment or intellectual property protection.
The next few weeks will reveal whether the EU is willing to take a tougher stance against Trump’s actions, or if the bloc will once again resort to appeasement. The fate of the transatlantic relationship hangs in the balance.
