President Donald Trump’s push to annex Greenland is sparking backlash from a European right that is usually rooting for the U.S. president. Parties such as France’s National Rally and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) are coming out in opposition to not only Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland, but there is also calls to scrap the tariff deal that was signed between the European Union and the United States.
Following Trump’s calls to place a 10 percent tariff on European nations he argued are hostile to his plans to acquire Greenland — which incldudes nations like Germany, Norway, and France — these nations released a statement. They argue that this tariff, which will jump to 25 percent in June, can “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.”
In France, MEP Jordan Bardella, president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, posted that the EU should suspend last year’s tariff deal with the U.S.. He said Trump’s threats amount to “commercial blackmail.”
“The threats issued by Donald Trump against the sovereignty of a state, all the more so a European one, are unacceptable. Commercial blackmail is no more tolerable. We call on the European Union to suspend the agreement concluded last July, which we had denounced at the time, that commits our interests without sufficient counter-parties,” wrote Bardella on X.
Les menaces proférées par Donald Trump à l’encontre de la souveraineté d’un État, a fortiori européen, ne sont pas acceptables.
Le chantage commercial n’est pas davantage tolérable. Nous appelons l’Union européenne à suspendre l’accord conclu en juillet dernier, que nous avions…
— Jordan Bardella (@J_Bardella) January 17, 2026His comments were not so far off his rival, French President Emmanuel Macron, who wrote on social media that “no intimidation or threats will influence us, whether in Ukraine, Greenland or anywhere else in the world when we are faced with such situations.” He added that “tariff threats are unacceptable and have no place in this context.”
In Germany, the AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was sharply critical of Trump’s foreign policy interventions, including Venezuela and now Greenland.
“Those who for years criticized and protested against Putin for violating international law are now silent when Trump does the same thing in Venezuela and Greenland. This hypocritical silence in the face of sovereignty violations is striking,” she said.
🚨BREAKING NEWS
Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD party in Germany:
“Those who for years criticized and protested against Putin for violating international law are now silent when Trump does the same thing in Venezuela and Greenland.
This hypocritical silence in the face of… pic.twitter.com/6Kca7P3agQ
— Aleksey Berezutski 🇷🇺🎖 (@aleksbrz11) January 18, 2026In Italy, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Sunday said she had spoken to him about his proposed tariffs, which she said were “a mistake.”
She told reporters that the deployment to Greenland of dozens of troops from eight nations was misunderstood by Washington. She claimed the deployment was not aimed at the U.S. but instead directed at other “actors” who she did not name.
Trump appears to be primarily targeting nations that sent troops to Greenland, albeit in very small numbers. These nations include NATO allies, Denmark, France, Norway, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Finland, and the Netherlands, which joined the Danish military training exercise “Arctic Endurance.”
Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark that Trump says is critical to U.S. national security and which he argues is unable to be defended by Denmark from Russia and China.
“We stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland,” the group of eight nations said. “Building on the process begun last week, we stand ready to engage in a dialogue based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that we stand firmly behind. Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.”
