Business & Economics
EU Freezes US Trade Deal and Mulls Anti-Coercion ‘Bazooka’ After Trump’s Greenland Tariff Ultimatum
On 21 Jan 2026, the European Parliament halted ratification of the July 2025 Turnberry trade pact and signalled possible use of the EU’s 2023 anti-coercion instrument after President Trump threatened 10–25 % tariffs unless Denmark cedes Greenland.
Focusing Facts
- Bernd Lange, chair of Parliament’s trade committee, announced on 21 Jan 2026 that work on the EU-US deal is “on hold until further notice.”
- Trump’s ultimatum targets Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and Norway with 10 % tariffs from 1 Feb, escalating to 25 % by June if no Greenland agreement is reached.
- Activating the anti-coercion tool requires a qualified-majority vote (55 % of states representing 65 % of EU population) and can unleash retaliatory measures within six months.
Context
Territorial bargaining backed by tariff threats echoes the 1962 US “chicken tax,” when Washington hit European vans with a 25 % duty and triggered tit-for-tat reprisals, and even earlier, Wilson’s 1914 trade squeeze on Mexico. Since the 1867 Alaska purchase, no major democracy has tried to buy land from an ally; Trump’s gambit revives that archaic playbook in an era where trade, not gunboats, is the preferred coercive lever. The EU’s still-holstered 2023 instrument was forged after China’s 2021 embargo on Lithuania, illustrating a wider shift toward bloc-level economic deterrence as the WTO stagnates and supply chains weaponise. Whether Brussels actually pulls the trigger could mark a hinge point: either the first real test of EU strategic autonomy and a crack in the post-1949 NATO bargain, or just another skirmish in the slow unwind of US-centric hegemony that future historians in 2126 will view as a stepping-stone toward a multipolar trade order.
Perspectives
Pro-EU commentators and European policy outlets
e.g., The Guardian, RTE, Daily Sabah — See the tariff threats as outright economic coercion that compels Europe to deploy its newly-minted anti-coercion instrument, scrap the Turnberry trade deal and hit Washington with painful counter-tariffs. Advocates a muscular EU response that may overestimate the union’s unity and capacity for rapid escalation, reflecting strategic autonomy agendas long pushed by Brussels-based analysts and liberal EU politicians.
US mainstream news organizations
e.g., ABC News, CNN/NewsChannel 3-12 — Report the deal’s suspension chiefly as a diplomatic flare-up that could still be resolved through talks, giving equal weight to Trump’s assurances he will avoid force and to EU officials’ indignation. Through a Washington-centric frame, coverage dampens the EU’s harder retaliatory rhetoric and treats the episode as another transactional Trump negotiation, potentially understating the gravity Europeans attach to territorial coercion.
Russian state-affiliated and other non-Western sceptical outlets
e.g., RT, Al-Ahram with AP feed — Highlight the dispute as proof that US ‘bullying’ fractures its alliances, stressing European outrage and the collapse of a supposedly one-sided trade deal. Framing amplifies Western discord to serve Moscow’s long-standing narrative that US leadership is unreliable, while glossing over Russia’s own coercive practices and presenting EU resistance as an anti-US victory.