By Maria Martinez and Leigh Thomas
BERLIN, Jan 19 (Reuters) – The German and French finance ministers said on Monday European powers would not be blackmailed and there would be a clear and united response to threats of escalated U.S. tariffs over Greenland.
President Donald Trump vowed on Saturday to implement a wave of increasing tariffs on imports from European allies until the United States is allowed to buy Greenland, intensifying a dispute over the future of Denmark’s vast Arctic island.
“Germany and France agree: we will not allow ourselves to be blackmailed,” German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil said at his ministry where he received his French counterpart.
“Blackmail between allies of 250 years, blackmail between friends, is obviously unacceptable,” French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said at the same event.
ANTI-COERCION INSTRUMENT ON TABLE
EU leaders are set to discuss options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($107.7 billion) of U.S. imports that could automatically kick in on February 6 after a six-month suspension.
“We Europeans must make it clear: the limit has been reached,” Klingbeil said. “Our hand is extended but we are not prepared to be blackmailed.”
The other option is the so far never used “Anti-Coercion Instrument”, which could limit access to public tenders, investments or banking activity or restrict trade in services, in which the U.S. has a surplus with the bloc, including in digital services.
Lescure said that although the EU’s anti-coercion instrument was above all a deterrent, it should be considered in the current circumstances.
“France wants us to examine this possibility, hoping, of course, that deterrence will prevail,” Lescure said. He added that he hoped the transatlantic relationship will return to being “friendly and based on negotiation, rather than a relationship based on threats and blackmail”.
Klingbeil said he was not interested in escalation, as it would come at the expense of economies on both sides of the Atlantic.
EUROPE IS ‘NOT WEAK’
Klingbeil and Lescure’s U.S. counterpart Scott Bessent said on Sunday that European “weakness” necessitated U.S. control of Greenland for global stability.
Lescure said that Europe needed to adopt reforms to boost its technological edge and productivity in order to prove that Europe was strong and not weak.
“Our objective in the coming days, weeks, quarters and years is to politely but firmly convince Scott Bessent that he is wrong,” Lescure said.
(Reporting by Maria Martinez and Leigh Thomas; Writing by Friederike Heine; Editing by Ludwig Burger and Andrew Heavens)
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