The fallout from Donald Trump’s tariff threat to EU allies that oppose his campaign to annex Greenland dominates Monday’s papers. The Guardian says European leaders are considering a plan to levy tariffs €93bn of US goods in response. The paper says Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had a call with Trump to tell his economic attack on Nato allies was wrong.
The Times focuses on the UK’s role in all this and highlights that Sir Keir Starmer will give an “emergency speech” later today under the headline ‘PM warns of downward spiral in US tariffs row’.
The Financial Times follows with details that the possible retaliatory tariffs are being drawn up to give European leaders leverage in crucial meetings with the US president at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week.
“Europe delivers a warning to Trump” echoes the Independent. Elsewhere, the paper fills its picture slot with a fist-pumping Emma Raducanu after she began her campaign at the Australian Open with a decisive win over Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew.
Raducanu is a popular picture choice on many of the front pages and the Daily Express accompanies its image of her celebrating victory with the headline “Smiling Emma wins after slow start Down Under”. Its lead story, like most others, is about the tariffs and it focuses on Europe’s warning that Trump’s threat “will rip Nato apart”. It also quotes Russia’s response to the row, hailing it as a “collapse of the transatlantic union”.
“Nato now ‘heading for disaster’ in Trump row” is the Daily Mail’s take, as the paper says Western leaders are warning the US president that his threat risked “a dangerous downward spiral” in relations.
The i Paper calls row the “biggest crisis” to hit the Nato alliance in decades and its “greatest threat”.
The Daily Mirror’s headline sums up the fallout as “Trump’s Greenland madness” and spotlights Lib Dems leader Sir Ed Davey urging the King to axe his planned US state visit in April, saying the UK “must not be a doormat for an extortionist”.
In other news, a new survey reveals tea breaks are becoming a thing of the past for millions of workers, with only half leaving their desk to go to the loo and a third rarely leaving their workspace, Metro reports.
Need an antidote for Blue Monday, measured as the day with the lowest public mood of the year? Well the Daily Star gives us news that Bez, whom it joyfully describes as a “dancing maracas star”, will be heading back on the road in March as part of a 35-year anniversary tour with the rock band Happy Mondays. “Don’t worry… Bez happy” is the headline as the paper pledges to “cheer you up every day of the week”.
Finally, the Sun reports on the news that former Little Mix star Jesy Nelson and her fiancé Zion Foster have split up after four years together.
