Europe weighs response as Trump links tariffs to Greenland (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: The European Union says it is continuing to engage with the United States at all levels. The ambassadors of the 27 countries met in Brussels last night to discuss the prospect of retaliation. The broad consensus that's emerged today is to try and de-escalate. The leaders will be meeting in Brussels at a special summit on Thursday. President Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on six EU countries, as well as the UK and Norway, starting at 10% next month, unless they acquiesce to Greenland becoming part of the United States. This morning, the British Prime Minister said threatening tariffs on allies was the wrong thing to do. But at the same time, he ruled out any retaliatory tariffs. The trade war, he said, is in no one's interest. Our chief political correspondent, Henry Zephman, has more.

[00:00:48] Speaker 2: How to handle President Trump? Sir Keir Starmer's answer to that complicated question is being tested today like never before. Good morning. The world has become markedly more turbulent in recent weeks. The UK and the US are close allies and close partners. That relationship matters profoundly. This wasn't Keir Starmer rebuking Donald Trump. This was him trying to justify why he's kept him close. Mature alliances are not about pretending differences don't exist. They are about addressing them directly, respectfully, and with a focus on results. All this because of an icy island a long way away, which, let's be frank, most of us have barely thought about before. President Trump says he needs more control of the Arctic, that it's vital for American and global security. And he's clearer than ever. He wants Greenland, part of Denmark, to be American instead. The right way to approach an issue of this seriousness is through calm discussion between allies. Any decision about the future status of Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark alone. This isn't just high-level geopolitics. President Trump's threat to impose tariffs on the UK over its objections to his plans means this matters to all of us. Alliances endure because they're built on respect and partnership, not pressure. That is why I said the use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong. Do you think Donald Trump is genuinely considering military action? Look, I don't, actually. The prime minister predicted that the US would not actually invade Greenland and hinted at the true scale of the transatlantic partnership. The interaction on intelligence between the US and the UK is the closest relationship of any two countries in the world. And that keeps us safe in ways I can't explain to you. For a prime minister who's invested so much energy in his relationship with President Trump over the past year, it's quite something for him even to say that the US president is wrong. But there'll be plenty in his party and in the country asking whether Keir Starmer went far enough.

[00:03:14] Speaker 3: It's pretty clear that the prime minister's tactics with Donald Trump lie in tatters now, really. The attempts at appeasement of the US president have failed and it's time for some stronger action.

[00:03:25] Speaker 2: Other political rivals are backing the prime minister on this.

[00:03:28] Speaker 4: For once, I do broadly agree with Keir Starmer. In the case of Greenland, it's a sovereign country and we have to respect sovereignty, particularly of our allies.

[00:03:37] Speaker 5: To use economic threats against the country that's been considered to be your closest ally for over 100 years is not the kind of thing we would expect.

[00:03:47] Speaker 2: It's wrong. What if the president doesn't back down? What does that mean for our trade, for our alliances, for our security? It's not clear that Zakir has his answers yet. Well, would any prime minister? Henry Zephyrman, BBC News, Westminster.

[00:04:04] Speaker 1: I can just show you some live pictures of Lars Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, who's just wrapping up a press conference on College Green here in London. He's been meeting with Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, in the last hour. Lots of meetings going on. In fact, we've got Mike Johnson, who is in London as well at the moment, the Speaker of the US House, who said today that the special relationship remains very special. You've almost got, at the moment, a good cop, bad cop routine going on because Donald Trump has been giving an interview to NBC News in the last few minutes in which he said Europe should focus on Russia, Ukraine rather than Greenland. But when asked whether he would follow through on plans to hit European nations with tariffs absent a Greenland deal, he said, yes, I will, 100%. He was also asked whether there would be any plan for a military invasion of Greenland. No comment, he said. We've also seen pictures in the last hour of Scott Besant arriving in Davos, where Donald Trump will be speaking on Wednesday. The US Treasury Secretary says America first does not mean America alone. So there is an outreach in some circles within some elements of the administration to European partners, but obviously still some very hardline rhetoric that is coming from Donald Trump. We got a flavour of that in a series of texts that he sent to the Norwegian Prime Minister, Jonas Garstør, linked to this threat to seize Greenland. In fact, he was complaining that he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It's an extraordinary message that he sent. I no longer feel, he said, an obligation to think purely of peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark, he went on, cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a right of ownership anyway? There are no written documents. It's only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there also. He finished, I've done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now NATO should do something for the United States. The world is not secure, he finished, unless we have complete and total control of Greenland. Well, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has warned the United States is now turning away from the rules-based international order. Chancellor Merz said the proposed tariffs would hurt both the United States and Europe. Today, the finance ministers of Germany and France said they would not allow the continent to be blackmailed.

[00:06:40] Speaker 6: Germany and France are in agreement. We will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed. Europe will give a united, clear response. We are now preparing countermeasures with our European partners. We are preparing them in case President Trump maintains his tariff threats.

[00:06:56] Speaker 7: Among friends, this is obviously unacceptable. We Europeans must remain united and coordinated in our response and be prepared to make full use of the European Union's instruments, the trade agreement, tariffs and the anti-coercion instruments. If these tariff threats are confirmed, we will examine them all.