By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-09 07:01:39 | Updated at 2025-01-09 18:45:39
11 hours ago
In the aftermath of last November’s US elections, EU officials approaching Donald Trump’s transition team were told to leave their “lecturing and moralising” at the door if they wanted to cut deals to avoid punitive trade tariffs and ensure US support for Ukraine, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, that advice seems to have sunk in, as Brussels has kept schtum amid a slew of threats and criticisms directed by the US president-elect’s camp towards Europe.
And while ministers from France and Germany have pushed back, Denmark’s foreign minister said Copenhagen was “open to a dialogue with the Americans on how we can cooperate” on Greenland.
During a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, Trump would not rule out using military force to seize Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark that the outspoken Republican leader said the US needed “for national-security purposes”.
“The people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States. But if they did – if they did [try to stop it] – then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level,” the US president-elect said.
At a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, the European Commission was swamped with questions on statements from Trump, including queries about his booster Elon Musk’s support for far-right parties across Europe.
