EU Weighs Response to Trump’s Greenland Tariff Threats (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: A number of European countries, including the UK, issued a strong joint statement saying the president's threat of more tariffs on European goods, unless the US is allowed to buy Greenland from Denmark, undermines transatlantic relations. EU ambassadors have been holding emergency talks in Brussels. Our first report tonight is from Nick Beek, who's there.

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: This evening, beyond these unremarkable Brussels wars, an emergency meeting of EU diplomats trying to respond to President Trump's latest extraordinary Greenland tariff threat, or blackmail, as Denmark has put it.

[00:00:39] Speaker 3: We have been asking since the very beginning of this to have a constructive dialogue with our American ally and friends. We opened that dialogue last week. We will not give up on that.

[00:00:56] Speaker 4: On the one hand, we stand with the Kingdom of Denmark in defence of its sovereignty. But we're also ready to do more together with America and with all our allies in the Arctic.

[00:01:08] Speaker 2: European troops have been sent to Greenland in recent days. With the message they're taking Arctic security seriously. But Donald Trump claims the threat here, from China and Russia, is now so great that only he can make Greenland safe again.

[00:01:24] Speaker 5: This conversation about tariffs, we believe is 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.

[00:01:34] Speaker 6: We'd urge the president not to go down this route. Clearly, when it comes to Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark, any issues over sovereignty is down to the people of Greenland and, obviously, the Kingdom of Denmark.

[00:01:50] Speaker 2: The UK is one of eight countries now facing higher taxes on goods they send to the US because of their support for Greenland. Support that gets in the way of Mr Trump's ambitions to buy the island. In a joint statement, the eight said, tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral. We will continue to stand united and coordinated in our response. We are committed to upholding our sovereignty. So here in Brussels, they've been weighing up their response. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been talking about a tariff counterattack on the US, deploying the EU's trade bazooka, as it's known. But that would be unprecedented and is already dividing allies. It was originally designed to combat bullying by a hostile external power. They were thinking about China, not the US. Europe has rolled out the red carpet for the president to try to manage second term Trump. But for many here, it now feels he's not just pulling up the transatlantic diplomatic drawbridge, but threatening to blow it up altogether. Nick Beek, BBC News, Brussels.

[00:03:03] Speaker 1: Well, in a moment, we'll talk to our economics editor, Faisal Islam. He's at the World Economic Forum in Davos and our Europe editor, Katia Adler, in Brussels. First, though, our political correspondent, Joe Pike, is with me. And Joe, we've seen Prime Minister Keir Starmer really try to build a relationship with Donald Trump. I mean, is there anything he can do now in regards to this?

[00:03:23] Speaker 7: Well, he's clearly, Jane, going to try. Although this is, I think, one of the biggest tests of the two leaders' relationship thus far. Some in geopolitics talk of Sakhir as one of the best Trump whisperers amongst world leaders. So far, those whispers do not seem to be working. We know very little about the contents of that phone call today, bar the disagreement. Reading the runes, it sounds like a sort of robust but agreeable, polite conversation. I think it's highly likely we hear more from the Prime Minister as soon as tomorrow. I understand that he recognises the need to communicate to the country how his government is responding, in particular, UK businesses who may be worried about the possibility of tariffs biting. Finally, two things to look ahead to next week. Firstly, potentially, the US Supreme Court on Tuesday announcing a decision on the legality of the Trump tariffs. They never say what they're going to announce in advance. But if they do say that Donald Trump does not have the authority, that could be consequential. The second thing, Jane, is the World Economic Forum in Davos. Trump is going, Starmer is not. But Number 10 sources are telling me tonight that could change.

[00:04:32] Speaker 1: Joe, thank you. Well, let's head to that forum in Davos. Faisal Islam is there for us. Would it be fair to say this Greenland is going to dominate the discussions there?

[00:04:45] Speaker 8: Yes, this forum of world leaders and thousands of business leaders is where people try and talk about what's going on in the world. And normally, you don't have a sort of self-inflicted, authored crisis like this. And the author of that disruption arriving here on Wednesday, as you've just been hearing, because Donald Trump has done some pretty extraordinary things in terms of world economic policy over the past year. But what we've seen this weekend is beyond precedent. It's beyond parody. It's kind of beyond reality. And the reaction we're seeing around the world kind of reflects that. Yes, it's sort of hope that it goes away, that this is another example of something that Donald Trump will tweet and then forget about or chicken out. Trump always chickens out, is the theory. But it's such a serious issue in terms of coercion of European allies over a piece of European territory that it's being taken extremely seriously, being called a form of economic war, essentially. And on top of that, you have the economic impacts from a renewed trade war. Many of these countries have been hit with tariffs over the past year. They just started to hope that this impact had washed through, the economies are still growing, things were looking OK, they diversified their trade. Now, a new set of tariffs, questions about the trade deals that already exist, not least with the UK too, and all of that centred around Donald Trump, who will be here alongside other world leaders who will try and get their questions answered on this extraordinary plan around Greenland and watch the financial markets too. They don't like this sort of turbulence dividing the Western alliance. Remember, it's Europe that owns most of America's debt.

[00:06:22] Speaker 1: Faisal, thank you. And let's return to Brussels, where EU ambassadors have been meeting, of course. Katia Adler is there. What's your assessment, Katia, of the seriousness of these transatlantic rifts?

[00:06:36] Speaker 9: Well, I'll tell you how seriously EU leaders have taken it, so seriously that they're organising an emergency summit here in Brussels on Thursday. And there are all sorts of back-channel conversations going on all the time. We heard from the president of the European Commission on X. She says she's been talking today to the Italian prime minister, to Sikiris Tama, to the secretary general of NATO. Because, Jane, this is absolutely the deepest crisis, internal crisis, that the Defence Alliance NATO has faced in all of its history, with its biggest, most powerful member, the United States, facing off against so many of the others, including the UK, France, and Germany. And also, as we've been hearing there from Faisal, what we're potentially looking at is a transatlantic trade war. That would affect all of us. And that will happen if Donald Trump goes ahead with these proposed Greenland tariffs, as they're now being called. And if, for example, the EU decides to retaliate big time, which the French really want to do, but we've been hearing from other EU member states this evening who are saying, hold fire for now. You see, the thing is, in Europe, there's a feeling that they're damned if they take action here and they're damned if they don't. If Europe now gets more confrontational with Donald Trump, it risks alienating the US even further. And the brutal truth is, Europe needs the US to find a sustainable peace deal for Ukraine, but also for its own security. And so it can't actually afford to take any of those risks. If it continues, though, to play it softly, softly to try and manage Donald Trump, as Europe has done pretty much since he returned to the White House, then it risks looking extremely weak. And watching from the sidelines, China and Russia probably with a big box of popcorn, because in their eyes, that concept of the West that's dominated global politics for decades with the US and Europe tightly knit at its centre, they think that's crumbling.