• Macron wants ‘never-before-used anti-coercion instrument’ against US
• Meloni calls tariff threat a ‘mistake’
• Dutch FM dubs it ‘blackmail’
• UK, Norway mull over response
LONDON: Global markets face a fresh bout of volatility after President Donald Trump vowed to slap tariffs on eight European nations until the US is allowed to buy Greenland.
Trump said he would impose an additional 10pc import tariffs from Feb 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Britain, which will rise to 25pc on June 1 if no deal is reached.
“Hopes that the tariff situation has calmed down for this year have been dashed for now — and we find ourselves in the same situation as last spring,” Berenberg chief economist Holger Schmied-ing said, expecting the euro could come under pressure when Asian trade begins.
“The US-EU trade war is back,” said Tina Fordham, strategist and Fordham Global Foresight founder.
On Sunday, European leaders slammed the tariff threat over their opposition to his designs on Greenland, warning transatlantic ties were at risk. “Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden warned in a joint statement.
An extraordinary meeting of its ambassadors was called in Brussels on Sunday by the EU, which clinched a deal with Washington in July for most EU exports to face a 15pc US levy.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron will ask the EU to activate a never-before-used “anti-coercion instrument” against the US if Trump makes good on his tariff threat, Macron’s aides said.
Even Trump’s European allies baulked at the threat.
Italy’s far-right Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, called the threatened tariffs a ‘mistake’. “I believe that imposing new sanctions today would be a mistake,” she said during her Seoul trip.
Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel called Trump’s threat an “inexplicable” form of “blackmail”.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was planning to discuss the situation with Trump “at the earliest opportunity”, UK culture minister Lisa Nandy told the BBC, calling the president’s tariff threat “wrong”.
“We believe it’s deeply unhelpful, and we believe it’s counterproductive, and the prime minister has not shied away from making that clear,” she said.
Trade war fear
France’s Agricultural Minister Annie Genevard warned that tariffs would hurt Washington, too.
“In this escalation of tariffs, (Trump) has a lot to lose as well, as do his own farmers and industrialists,” she told broadcasters Europe 1 and CNews.
Norway, targeted by the tariff threat but, like Britain, not an EU member, said it was not currently looking at retaliation against US goods.
“I think one needs to stop and think so that a trade war can be averted that would lead to a downward spiral. Nobody would win,” Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store told NRK television.
Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2026
