Trump Threatens New 10% Tariff as EU, UK Resist Greenland Sale

Jan. 19, 2026 | |

President Donald Trump will levy 10% tariffs on vehicles and other goods manufactured in a handful of European nations and sold in the United States, escalating an ongoing campaign to acquire Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory Trump believes is critical to America’s national security.

Affected countries include Denmark as well as Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. If implemented, the tariffs will go into effect Feb. 1 and increase to 25% on June 1 if no deal has been made.

“The United States of America is immediately open to negotiation with Denmark and/or any of these Countries that have put so much at risk, despite all that we have done for them,” Trump writes in a Truth Social post.

Each of the listed nations has pushed back on the notion of allowing the U.S. to take command of the island, which straddles the Atlantic and Arctic oceans, and its 56,000-plus residents, who are citizens of Denmark and thus of the European Union.

Trump has wielded tariffs throughout both of his terms, a strategy that has raised costs for manufacturers and buyers of vehicles, among other goods, and has in many cases led to new trade deals. But AP reporters Josh Boak, Emma Burrows and Daniel Niemann note a new duty on some but not all EU member states raises unique concerns.

“There are immediate questions about how the White House could try to implement the tariffs because the EU is a single economic zone in terms of trading, according to a European diplomat who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity,” they write. “It was unclear, too, how Trump could act under U.S. law, though he could cite emergency economic powers that are currently subject to a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.”

Read more at AP