BRUSSELS (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to annex Greenland and impose tariffs on its backers pose a challenge to Europe’s security, principles and prosperity, European Council President António Costa said on Wednesday.
“All these three dimensions are being tested in the current moment of transatlantic relations,” said Costa, who has convened an emergency summit of the leaders of all 27 European Union member states on Thursday.
Trump’s
determination to “ acquire ” Greenland — a mineral-rich, semiautonomous Danish territory in the Arctic region — for what he claims are security reasons, has undermined trust in the United States among allies in Europe and Canada.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum later on Wednesday, Trump might have eased some concerns when he made clear for the first time that he would not use force to seize Greenland, saying: “I won’t do that. Okay?”
Denmark angered Trump after sending a military “reconnaissance” force to Greenland. A small numbers of troops from several European nations joined, and Denmark is weighing a longer-term military presence there.
Costa said EU leaders are united on “the principles of international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty,” something the bloc has underlined in defending Ukraine against invasion by Russia, and which is now threatened in Greenland.
In a speech to EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France, he also stressed that only “Denmark and Greenland can decide their future.”
Costa said that “we stand ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies, against any form of coercion. And the European Union has the power and the tools to do so.”
He also insisted that “further tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement.” The lawmakers must endorse that deal made last July, but it's now been put on hold.
Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, said Trump is still “using tariffs as a coercive instrument.”
“Until the threats over, there will be no possibility for compromise,” Lange said, describing tariffs as “an attack against the economic and territorial sovereignty and integrity of the European Union.”
EU leaders have been galvanized by Trump’s threats over Greenland, and are rethinking their relations with America, their long-time ally and the most powerful member of NATO.
“Appeasement is always a sign of weakness. Europe cannot afford to be weak — neither against its enemies, nor ally,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, long a staunch supporter of strong transatlantic ties, posted on social media on Tuesday.
“Appeasement means no results, only humiliation. European assertiveness and self-confidence have become the need of the moment,” Tusk wrote.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who manages trade on behalf of the EU, warned that the bloc is “at a crossroads.”
Should tariffs come, she said, “we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency and determination.”
In Strasbourg, she told the lawmakers that the commission is working on “a massive European investment surge in Greenland” to beef up its economy and infrastructure, as well as a new European security strategy.
Security around the island itself should be boosted with partners like the U.K., Canada, Norway and Iceland, among others, von der Leyen said.
