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10% levy will kick in on February 1, possibly rising to 25% on June 1, affecting Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and the UK.
Trump has said the import taxes will remain in place until “such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland” by the US.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has said “Europe won’t be blackmailed”, and other leaders are weighing up whether retaliation is in order.
In the meantime, in a joint statement, the countries said they “stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland”.
Waikato University international law professor Al Gillespie told The Front Page that nothing is stopping Trump from eyeing up the Pacific, somewhere like the Cook Islands.
“In fact, it would be easier to take up parts of the Pacific where there’s no alliance agreement like Nato.
“But the risk here is not what Trump sees in the Pacific; it’s what other countries see in the Pacific. The risk is that China decides it needs to take this country for our defence, or Russia says we need to take this country for our defence, and there’s no international mechanism to stop this force.
“In an ideal world, if the Europeans put economic countermeasures on Trump for his threats to annex Greenland, we should join the countermeasures. We should be willing to stand with Europe to say that this is wrong,” he said.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said that the decision is for Greenlanders.
“It’s a sovereign state, and it’s pretty clear that they want to be part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
“The second thing I’d say is that tariffs are not the way forward in terms of we don’t want to see a downward spiral of tariffs and tit-for-tat tariffs, that’s just not acceptable.
“It’s in New Zealand’s interest to see a healthy trans-Atlantic relationship in place. And actually, we think through discussion and debate and dialogue, actually, if the US has genuine concerns around Arctic security, we’ll have those conversations. But tariffs is not the way forward,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
- Legal and diplomatic implications
- Why Trump wants Greenland
- Global consequences
- New Zealand’s potential response.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
