And so the heat seems to have, temporarily at least, come out of the thing. Leaders of the European Union’s 27 states gathered in Brussels on Thursday night for a crisis summit – to discuss a crisis they hoped had already been averted.
Nobody was leaning back too comfortably, particularly not Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen.
There were only five days between Donald Trump’s first Truth Social post waving the tariff cudgel over the heads of European countries and his post dropping the threats. EU leaders will be bracing for further twists.
Politicians and diplomats had been stunned by Trump’s willingness to threaten military force, or crippling trade tariffs, to wrest control of Greenland from the kingdom of Denmark.
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A “framework” deal sketched out by Nato secretary general Mark Rutte appears to have convinced Trump to relent on his demands to “own” the Arctic island, which sits in a strategically important location to America’s north.
Nonetheless, the transatlantic bond between Europe and the United States, a relationship that has underpinned decades of economic prosperity and peace, emerges from the past week badly damaged.
The EU had been drawing up a series of responses for what it feared might become an ugly fight before Trump’s climbdown.
Tariffs on Denmark and other European countries on February 1st would have been met with retaliatory EU tariffs, hitting €93-billion-worth of US trade.
There was less reluctance to countenance using the EU’s powerful trade “bazooka” to fight back against attempted US economic coercion. Those wide-ranging emergency powers would have allowed the bloc to introduce export controls and target US companies in a trade war. However, the first preference had always been for dialogue.
[ Trump’s Greenland climbdown brings relief but way forward unclearOpens in new window ]
“I think there is little doubt that if the tariff threats had moved forward, that would have been coercion,” said one EU official involved in top-level discussions between capitals.
The same official believes a majority of governments would have supported the EU triggering those anti-coercion powers, in the face of new tariffs.
That marks a change in attitude. During the EU-US tariff row last summer many leaders were wary of sounding gung-ho, even privately.
“All the instruments that the EU have are always on the table, they are not put away in a closet somewhere,” a senior EU official said. “This is a new normal.”
Trust between Washington and Copenhagen, traditionally one of the most Atlanticist capitals in Europe, is broken and won’t be repaired while Trump is president. EU-US relations have never been lower.
The debacle reinforces the idea that Trump views the world as a real estate developer might scan a city planning map for vacant lots to buy and flip.
Rutte looks to have convinced him about the upsides of a deal, details of which are publicly unknown, as an alternative to “buying” the Danish territory. In doing so, the former Dutch prime minister bolstered his reputation as a “Trump whisperer” able to get through to the US president.
Early media reports suggest the prospective deal could see US military bases (there is one on Greenland at present) treated as sovereign American territory, similar to the two airbases the UK controls on Cyprus. It is not clear whether that crosses Denmark’s red lines on the territorial integrity of Greenland.
Nato allies would separately commit to stepping up their military presence guarding the Arctic, something Nordic states had already offered to do beforehand.
In a statement, Frederiksen said Denmark would engage in “constructive dialogue with allies” about shoring up Arctic security and Trump’s plans for a “Golden Dome” missile defence system. The Danish prime minister said those discussions would only be a runner while territorial integrity was respected.
