EU freezes US trade deal over Trump threats
The European Parliament has halted approval of the EU’s landmark trade and tariff deal with the US, citing US President Donald Trump’s “continued and escalating threats” against the bloc, including his plan to annex Greenland.
“Given the continued and escalating threats, including tariff threats, against Greenland and Denmark, and their European allies, we have been left with no alternative but to suspend work” on the deal, Bernd Lange, who heads the legislature’s international trade committee, said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Our sovereignty and territorial integrity are at stake,” he wrote in a separate post on X. “Business as usual impossible”
Signed by Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last July, the deal caps tariffs on most EU goods entering the US at 15%, a lower rate than that imposed on most US trading partners. In exchange, the EU eliminated tariffs on some American agricultural and industrial imports, and agreed to invest $600 billion in the US and purchase $750 billion worth of American energy.
The deal was widely seen as favoring the US, and European lawmakers were preparing to vote on amendments to the agreement in the coming days. However, the recent dispute between Washington and Brussels over Greenland has thrown its ratification into uncertainty.
Trump announced an additional 10% tariff last week on eight European NATO countries opposing his planned takeover of Greenland. The US president warned that this penalty would increase to 25% if a deal on the territory – which already hosts a US military base – is not reached by June.
Denmark has repeatedly stated that it will not relinquish control of Greenland, but Trump has promised to seize the island “the easy way” or “the hard way.” In his speech at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos on Wednesday, the US president described Greenland as “our territory,” and demanded that Denmark enter “immediate negotiations” to hand it over to Washington.
