"Tariffs will be enforced 100%"/ Trump does not back down on Greenland, EU vows to protect its interests

2026-01-20 07:37:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

"Tariffs will be enforced 100%"/ Trump does not back down on

US President Donald Trump has vowed to fully implement his threat to impose tariffs on European countries that oppose his demand to take control of Greenland.

Meanwhile, European allies have pledged to defend Greenland's sovereignty. Denmark's foreign minister stressed that the US president cannot invade the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper reiterated the UK's position that the future of Greenland is for Greenlanders and Danes alone to decide.

On Monday, Trump refused to rule out the use of force and insisted he would press ahead with tariffs on goods arriving in the US from the UK and seven other NATO allies.

In a post on Truth Social in the early hours of Tuesday morning, the US president said he had a very good phone conversation with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Switzerland this week.

"Greenland is essential for National and Global Security. There can be no going back - On that, everyone agrees!" he said.

Trump has said he will impose a 10% tariff on all goods shipped to the US from February 1, rising to 25% from June 1, until a deal is reached for Washington to buy Greenland from Denmark.

He said the same would apply to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, which are all members of the NATO defense alliance, which was founded in 1949.

"Europe should be focused on the war with Russia and Ukraine because, frankly, you see what that has done to them... That's what Europe should be focused on - not Greenland," Trump told the media.

Denmark has warned that US military action in Greenland would spell the end of NATO. In recent days, Greenland has received support from the alliance's European members - some even sent a handful of troops to Greenland last week in what was seen as a symbolic move.

The European Union will hold an emergency summit in Brussels for its leaders on Thursday to discuss how to respond to Trump's latest threat to invade Greenland. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, said the bloc has no interest in starting a war but will stand by its position.

"But trade threats are not the way to solve this issue. Sovereignty is not about trade," Kallas added.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) announced on Monday that several aircraft are heading to Pituffik Space Base in Greenland. The joint US-Canadian military defense organization stressed that they are part of a routine operation to support various long-planned NORAD activities and said they were coordinated with Denmark and that the Greenland government had been informed. Similar NORAD operations at the base took place in 2022, 2023 and last year. /CNA