European leaders have lined up to condemn Donald Trump’s “new colonialism” and warn that the continent was facing a crossroads as the US president said there was no going back on his goal of controlling Greenland.
After weeks of aggressive threats by Trump to seize the vast Arctic island, which is a largely autonomous part of Denmark, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Tuesday he preferred “respect to bullies” and the “rule of law to brutality”.
Macron told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that now was “not a time for new imperialism or new colonialism”, criticising the “useless aggressivity” of Trump’s pledge to levy tariffs on countries that opposed a US takeover of Greenland.
The US was seeking to “weaken and subordinate Europe” by demanding “maximum concessions” and imposing tariffs that were “fundamentally unacceptable – even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty”, he said, wearing sunglasses because of an eye condition.
Trump’s push for Greenland has intensified in recent weeks, with the president saying the US would take control of the vast Arctic island “one way or the other” and: “Now it is time, and it will be done!!!” He is expected to visit Davos and give a speech on Wednesday.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Trump’s threat to impose a 10% tariff on imports from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland unless they dropped their objections to his plans was “a mistake”.
Appearing to call Trump’s trustworthiness into question, she also noted the EU and US had “agreed to a trade deal last July, and in politics, as in business, a deal is a deal. When friends shake hands, it must mean something.”
Europeans, she added, “consider the people of the US not just our allies, but our friends”. She warned against plunging relations into “a downward spiral”, but said the EU’s response, if necessary, would be “unflinching, united and proportional”.
Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, said Europe was “at a crossroads” and “so many red lines are being crossed” by Trump that the continent had to stand up for itself or “lose its dignity … The most precious thing you can have in a democracy.”
De Wever said he would “like to confirm that [the US] is an ally, but they have to behave like an ally”. Eighty years of Atlanticism could be coming to an end, he said. “A Nato country is threatening another Nato country with military invasion.”
Trump posted on social media on Tuesday that during a call with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, he had “expressed … very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back.”
He posted an AI image of himself, the US vice-president, JD Vance, and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, planting a US flag next to a sign reading: “Greenland, US territory est. 2026.” Another image showed a map with Canada and Greenland as part of the US.
Separately, the US president posted a message to him from Macron, who said he did “not understand what you are doing on Greenland”. The US president had earlier threatened to hit French wine and champagne with a 200% tariff if Macron did not accept an invite to join his “Board of Peace”.
The spiralling row has plunged trade relations between the EU and the US into fresh chaos, forcing the bloc to consider retaliatory measures, and also risks unravelling the Nato transatlantic alliance that has guaranteed western security for decades.
The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, fresh from a trip to Beijing to forge a new Canada-China partnership, told Davos the world’s “middle powers” need to work together to build a better world order.
“It seems that every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading,” Carney said in a speech that ended with a standing ovation.
Carney said the world faces “the end of a pleasant fiction and the dawn of a harsh reality of geopolitics” in which the great powers are unconstrained.
“We know the old order is not coming back. We shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy”, he said.
Trump is due to be at the WEF gathering with EU leaders who are mulling retaliatory measures that could include a package of tariffs on €93bn (£80bn) of US imports that has been suspended for six months.
Another option is the bloc’s “anti-coercion instrument” (ACI), which has never been used but would limit US access to public tenders, investments or banking activities and restrict trade in services, including digital services.
Senior MEPs on the European parliament’s international trade committee are expected to announce on Wednesday the formal suspension of ratification of the EU-US trade deal sealed in July, after a deal between the largest political groups, a European parliament source said.
“This is not a question about the Kingdom of Denmark, it is about the entire transatlantic relationship,” Denmark’s economy minister, Stephanie Lose, said in Brussels. “At this point in time, we do not believe that anything should be ruled out.”
However, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said that US relations with Europe were strong and urged partners to “take a deep breath” and let tensions over Greenland “play out”.
Bessent said a solution would be found and European “hysteria” was unjustified. “It’s been 48 hours. Sit back, relax,” he said. “I am confident the leaders will not escalate and that this will work out in a manner that ends up in a very good place for all.”
Trump has rocked the EU and Nato by refusing to rule out using military force to seize Greenland, a strategically important, mineral-rich island that is covered by many of the protections offered by the two organisations since Denmark is a member of both.
Greenland’s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said in the capital, Nuuk, that it was “unlikely” military force would be used, but it could be. “Greenland is part of Nato, and if there is an escalation, it will have consequences for the outside world,” he said.
The Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, speaking in the Danish parliament, said that “the worst may still be ahead of us”. Frederiksen added that her country had “never sought conflict. We have consistently sought cooperation.”
Trump has repeatedly said the US needs to take control of Greenland for “national security”, despite the US already having a military base on the island and a bilateral agreement with Denmark allowing it to massively expand its presence there.
Von der Leyen said in her speech that the EU was working on a package for Arctic security based on Greenlandic and Danish sovereignty, a big investment surge in Greenland, and cooperation with the US in the region.
The Danish public broadcaster TV2 reported that 58 Danish troops had landed in Greenland on Tuesday to join about 60 others who were dispatched earlier for a multinational military exercise, Operation Arctic Endurance.
European leaders are considering establishing a more permanent military presence in the high north to help guarantee security in the Arctic region, a key US demand, the Swedish defence minister, Pål Jonson, said.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he had no plans to travel to Davos but could change his plans if his delegation and US officials make a breakthrough in peace efforts aimed at ending the war in his country.
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