BRUSSELS — Donald Trump’s address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday will help determine the tone of Europe’s response to the U.S. president’s tariff threats as leaders desperately search for an off-ramp from the standoff.
European governments are holding out hope they can lower the temperature and get Trump to abandon his vow to slap punitive tariffs on European countries that have opposed the sale of Greenland to the United States. POLITICO spoke to 11 diplomats and two EU officials, all of whom said they want to avoid retaliation and are betting that a diplomatic solution to the crisis can still be found.
“The focus is getting the ball rolling in Davos. Then, we will take stock” at an emergency EU leaders summit convened for Thursday, said one EU diplomat. “The pressure needs to come down.”
Trump’s announcement Saturday, in which he threatened six EU countries plus the U.K. and Norway with additional 10 percent tariffs as of next month because they haven’t supported his designs on Greenland, a semiautonomous territory in the kingdom of Denmark, has sparked the biggest rupture in transatlantic relations in decades.
