US has a lot to lose with Greenland tariff threats, French minister says

France’s agriculture minister Annie Genevard said on Sunday (January 18) economic losses could be felt on both sides of the Atlantic, after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to slap tariffs on eight European nations until the he is allowed to buy Greenland.

Trump said he would impose an additional 10% import tariffs from February 1 on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Britain, which will rise to 25% on June 1 if no deal is reached.

The European Union faced calls on Sunday (January 18) to implement a never-before-used range of economic counter-measures known as the "Anti-Coercion Instrument" as part of the bloc's response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff threats against European allies over Greenland.

A source close to French President Emmanuel Macron said he was working to coordinate a European response and was pushing for activation of the Anti-Coercion Instrument, which could limit access to public tenders in the bloc or restrict trade in services in which the U.S. has a surplus with the EU.

In social media posts late on Saturday, Bernd Lange, the German Social Democrat who chairs the European Parliament's trade committee, and Valerie Hayer, head of the centrist Renew Europe group, echoed his call, as did Germany's engineering association on Sunday.

"Donald Trump is using tariffs, initially as an economic tool to benefit Americans. And now he's using them for coercion,” Genevard told journalists in an interview aired over CNews.

Production: Michaela Cabrera/Reuters