"I may impose tariffs on countries if they are not cooperative over Greenland because we need Greenland for our national security," Trump said at the White House on Friday, without giving further details.
While Trump's threats about Greenland have been mounting in recent days, voices are being raised in the European Parliament to freeze the formal approval of the new trade agreement between the EU and the US.
It is clear that the national sovereignty of all countries must be respected by all parties to the trade agreement, said German Social Democrat Bernd Lange, chairman of the parliament's trade committee, in an interview with Bloomberg published earlier on Wednesday, before Trump's tariff threat.
Decision next week
The political groups in the European Parliament are divided on what to do, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The agreement, which came into effect in July but requires parliamentary approval to become official, entails US import tariffs of 15 percent on many goods from the EU.
The Trade Committee is due to take a position on the issue at a meeting on Wednesday next week. The committee has already postponed the issue for a week to await the meeting between the US, Denmark and Greenland, which took place in Washington on Wednesday.
There, the parties agreed to form a joint working group - but there are divided opinions about what the work should aim for. When White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked what the working group should do, she replied, "talk about an American takeover of Greenland."
“Really hard”
This was completely rejected by Denmark's Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, chief negotiator for the Danish-Greenlandic side.
We have a red line: the sovereignty of Denmark and Greenland must be respected, it is as clear as Trump's desire to take over Greenland, he said and continued:
It shows that this can be really, really hard.
