US-EU ties have taken ‘a big blow’ – Kallas
Relations between the EU and US have “taken a big blow” over the past week due to President Donald Trump’s aggressive rhetoric on Greenland, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has said.
Trump has demanded that Greenland, an autonomous territory of EU member Denmark, come under US control, citing its mineral wealth and strategic Arctic position. Earlier this week, he urged Copenhagen to enter “immediate negotiations” to transfer the territory and threatened European opponents of the move with tariffs.
While Trump later appeared to soften his stance, announcing Wednesday that he and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte had agreed on a “framework of a future deal” on Greenland, he did not provide details on its future ownership within that framework.
Speaking ahead of an emergency European Council meeting on Thursday, Kallas insinuated that Washington wants to throw away decades of cooperation with the bloc.
“The transatlantic relations have definitely taken a big blow over the last week,” she stated.
Kallas noted that US actions toward the EU have grown increasingly unpredictable even before the Greenland dispute.
“I think in this one year we have learned that these relations are not the same as they were… Although I think everybody’s relieved with [Trump’s] recent announcements, in this one year period we [faced] a lot of unpredictability,” she said, adding, however, that Brussels remains “not willing to junk 80 years of good relations” and is ready to work on them through future dialogue.
Relations between Washington and Brussels have been strained since Trump returned to office last year, with recurring disputes over trade, defense, digital regulation, and the Ukraine conflict. Trump repeatedly used tariff threats against the EU, culminating in a July trade deal widely seen in Europe as humiliating, and accused European NATO nations of shirking responsibilities within the alliance. His 2026 National Security Strategy further criticized the bloc, calling it strategically unreliable and warning of “civilizational erasure.”
The stance prompted German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to warn last month that the era of the so-called “Pax Americana” – the transatlantic order under which the US was the EU’s primary security guarantor – is over.
