Emmanuel Macron calls on fellow leaders to use powerful anti-coercion instrument if US goes ahead with tariffs

The EU was weighing up retaliatory tariffs on American goods and even deploying its most serious economic sanctions against the US as European leaders lined up to criticise Donald Trump’s threat to levy new taxes on imports from eight nations who oppose his attempt to annex Greenland – which one minister called “blackmail”.

“Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the leaders of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland said in a joint statement. “We are committed to upholding our sovereignty.”

Next few weeks will show if Trump has finally pushed too far with Greenland levies, as calls grow for bloc to take tougher action

As the sun set over the port of Limassol in Cyprus, the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, last Thursday used a tried and tested formula to describe the US – calling it one of “our allies, our partners”. Only 24 hours earlier, Denmark, an EU and Nato member state, had warned that Donald Trump was intent on “conquering” Greenland, but the reflex at the top of the EU executive to describe the US as a friend runs deep.

Trump’s weekend announcement that eight countries that have supported Greenland would face tariffs unless there was a deal to sell the territory to the US was another hammer to the transatlantic alliance, mocking the notion that the US is Europe’s ally. The eight countries include six EU member states, as well as Norway and the UK, the latter unprotected by the much vaunted “special relationship”. It suggests that Europe’s strategy of flattering and appeasing the US president has failed.