How can the EU reply to US ‘blackmail’ over Greenland? | EUROtoday

After President Donald Trump introduced he would levy 10% commerce tariffs on eight European nations who oppose his annexation of Greenland, EU officers started mulling which measures to make use of to reply.

At their disposal are primarily three choices:

• The use of the so-called “trade bazooka” — a never-before-used instrument that might even go so far as limiting market entry for US firms within the EU.
• The implementation of retaliatory tariffs.
• The suspension of the EU-US commerce deal, which has but to come back into impact.

EU heads of state and authorities will meet for a summit on Thursday — a dinner cobbled collectively in haste to coordinate which of these choices the bloc will use in response to Trump’s threats.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen mentioned on the weekend, “Europe won’t be blackmailed.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz mentioned, “we don’t want a trade dispute with the US.”

But he is getting one. Following Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Finland are all being focused with Trump’s tariffs after they despatched a handful of navy representatives to Greenland the earlier week. They did so to sign solidarity with Denmark which has counted Greenland as autonomous nation inside its kingdom since 1953.

Economic Heavy Weaponry

The phrases on everybody’s lips in Brussels proper now are “Trade Bazooka” – the slang title for a technical piece of EU laws agreed again in 2023, formally referred to as the EU Anti-Coercion Instrument, or ACI.

Triggering it might permit the European Commission to impose sweeping commerce limitations in opposition to any nation focused, doubtlessly together with market entry restrictions and blocks on overseas funding.

French President Emmanuel Macron needs the EU to invoke it however Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, amongst others, is hesitant.

“The ACI contains many tools that could be impactful if deployed, such as procurement or export controls on critical inputs for US supply chains,” Penny Naas, senior vp on the German Marshall Fund, instructed DW. “The tool, however, takes time to implement.”

The ACI was created in response to China’s financial coercion of Lithuania, a rustic supportive of Taiwanese independence from Beijing. It was by no means meant for use in opposition to Europe’s closest allies.

Ignacio García Bercero was as soon as the EU’s chief negotiator on the controversial “TTIP” commerce deal between the EU and the US which didn’t get off the bottom below the Obama presidency and was buried when Trump first received elected in 2016.

Bercero believes grounds for the EU to make use of the ACI have already been met.

“What is happening now with Greenland is the clearest possible case of coercion,” Bercero instructed DW in an interview. “It is a threat to the territorial integrity of a member state of the EU.”

Is €93 Billion Enough?

Agreement on reviving a collection of reciprocal tariffs on US merchandise price €93 billion appears one probably consequence from Thursday’s EU chief’s summit.

The bundle was initially agreed earlier in 2025 in response to the tariffs Trump introduced in opposition to nations all around the world.

There have been some solutions that this response will likely be interpreted as gentle by the White House, however Heather Grabbe, a senior fellow on the Bruegel assume tank, believes strain on the US financial system forward of the nation’s midterm elections might be vital.

“Those tariffs have been chosen to exert particular pain on firms that can lobby Trump, like American cigarette makers,” Grabbe mentioned, talking with DW in Brussels.

“But ultimately, a trade war that involves tit-for-tat tariffs is going to damage the Europeans too, because we’re pretty export-oriented,” she mentioned. “Many goods in the US have also gone up in price because of Trump’s tariff policies, which will be weighing on Republican candidates in the run-up to midterms.”

Time to ditch the commerce deal

The third choice could be to observe the demand of mainstream political teams within the European Parliament who’re calling for the 2025 commerce settlement with the US to be instantly thrown out within the wake of the tariff menace over Greenland.

Brussels and Washington signed a deal in the summertime of 2025 whereby the EU agreed to simply accept 15% tariffs when buying and selling with the US, slightly than the unique 20% Trump introduced on what he referred to as “Liberation Day”. In change for the 5% discount, the EU agreed to impose zero tariffs on the US, stepping again from introducing the €93 billion bundle outlined above.

At the time, Alberto Alemanno, Professor in European Union Law at HEC Paris, branded it an “economic surrender” by the European Union.

He says the EU may now hit the US the place it actually hurts.

“Europe’s actual leverage doesn’t come from matching Trump’s tariffs,” Alemanno mentioned. “It comes from what bothers the American administration the most: European high standards, protecting our people and markets — from data protection, to AI governance, to corporate accountability worldwide.”

“What Europe should do instead is double down on enforcement and exporting its regulatory standards even more than before,” he mentioned.

Edited by: Jess Smee