Donald Trump’s threat to impose fresh tariffs on eight European countries – UK, Norway and six EU member states – is a wrecking ball to the carefully stitched deals he concluded with those countries last summer.
The countries picked off by Trump are those that supported or have sent troops to Greenland as part of a coordinated effort to strengthen security in the Arctic.
The US president’s latest threat may backfire. It has unleashed an unprecedented hostile response from EU leaders, with warnings from Emmanuel Macron and others that they will not respond to intimidation, bullying and blackmail.
Lawmakers in the European parliament, when they meet on Wednesday, are almost certain to pause the US trade deal sealed at Trump’s Scottish golf course last summer.
The two biggest voting blocs in the European parliament, the European People’s party (EPP) and the Socialists & Democrats (S&Ds), said on Saturday night the deal with the EU could not be approved in the present circumstances.
The liberal voting bloc Renew said it would also support pausing the ratification process, likely to torpedo the deal, for now, confirming at the same time its foundations were built on sand.
An academic point as Trump can unilaterally increase tariffs on his side, but his threat also disregards that trade deals are the competence of Brussels and individual countries cannot retaliate, or negotiate away his latest threat.
The EU-US trade deal was agreed under considerable pressure from Trump in Scotland last July. However, while it has entered into force in the US, the 0% tariffs promised to the US have yet to be legally ratified in the EU.
“The EPP is in favour of the EU-US trade deal, but given Donald Trump’s threats regarding Greenland, approval is not possible at this stage,” said Manfred Weber, the leader of the EPP. “The 0% tariffs on US products must be put on hold.”
Kathleen Van Brempt, the vice-president for trade for the S&Ds, said there could be “no trade deal under [the] given circumstances”.
The UK’s trade deal, as it was described last May, is already in force, but applies to a limited number of products – cars, beef, aerospace, ethanol and steel – with a 10% tariff deal on other exports ranging from salmon to bone china.
The latest threat will be seen as another attempt by a man – sometimes ally, sometimes adversary – desperate to win an argument, using one of his favourite weapons. It will also be seen as an attempt to divide Europe and quash their opposition to his Greenland takeover ambition.
Mikkel Runge Olesen, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said Trump’s threat was a sign that Europe’s opposition to his threat to take over Greenland was working.
“I think it is a reaction to the European troops going to Greenland, because if you look at the tariffs they match the countries who sent troops,” he told Sky News.
“We are never going to see American troops on the ground in Greenland, this is a negotiating tactic.”
Saturday’s threat underlines the unstable nature of any deal with Trump but also seems to have fired up the EU, which many have considered weak in the face of multiple episodes of bullying by the US.
It certainly appears to have lit a fire under EU leaders. In an unusually strongly worded statement, the EU’s chief diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said: “China and Russia must be having a field day” after Trump’s threat against his allies.
Both the EU and the UK are in the middle of sensitive negotiations to reduce tariffs Trump has already imposed, particularly on steel, which are rated at 25% for British exports and 50% for EU products.
But in December the US paused a linked £31bn tech investment deal over apparent unhappiness with the UK’s tech regulation.
The US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, made the same threat to the EU that there would be no deal on reducing steel tariffs unless the EU rolled back on tech laws. This is despite the EU and the US’s common interest in forming a club to fight cheaper Chinese imports.
