EU Suspends US Trade Deal Following Trump's Greenland Tariff Threats

The European Union's legislative body on Wednesday halted work on the formal approval and implementation of the trade deal it reached last summer with President Donald Trump. "Given the continued and escalating threats, including tariff threats, against Greenland and Denmark, and their European allies, we have been left with no alternative but to suspend work" on the deal, said Bernd Lange, the chairman of the European Parliament's international trade committee. "Until the US decides to re-engage on a path of cooperation rather than confrontation," no steps to move the deal forward would be taken, Lange said in a statement. "Our sovereignty and territorial integrity are at stake," he added in a post on X. "Business as usual impossible." The announcement came after Trump on Saturday said he would hit seven European Union countries, plus the U.K., with tariffs if they did not allow the United States to control Greenland. The E.U. trade deal was reached in July during a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Trump's golf club in Turnberry, Scotland. The core of the deal was a cap on U.S. tariffs applied to most imports from the E.U. at just 15%. The rate was among the lowest received by any trading partner last year. Some imports from the E.U., such as generic pharmaceuticals would have had all tariffs removed. In exchange for the lower tariff rate, the European Union, America's largest trading partner, would have lowered tariffs on some goods it imports from the United States. This would have helped American agricultural and industrial companies sell products into the 27-country bloc. When the deal was first announced, the European Commission said it "restores stability and predictability." But all that changed with Trump's Saturday tariff threat. "In politics as in business, a deal is a deal" Von der Leyen said on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum. "And when friends shake hands, it must mean something."