Trade and war have historically been related, as, for example, money from recurring surplus balances of trade—an alternative to debt—has facilitated military build-ups prior to going to war in the Europe. In threatening to take Greenland by military force if the E.U. state of Denmark continued to refuse to sell the island and then issuing 10% tariffs against Denmark and other E.U. states, as well as two sovereign European states for having sent troops to defend Greenland in case the U.S. were to invade, President Trump closely wielded trade and military policy. The E.U.’s response was unbalanced, being oriented only to the trade element of the E.U.-U.S. bilateral relationship, due to weaknesses in the E.U.’s federal system.
In January, 2026, President
Trump’s announced that “a 10% tariff on all products coming from eight European
countries”—the E.U. states of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany plus
Britain, which had seceded from the E.U., and stand-alone Norway—would begin on
February 1st and increase substantially months later “until a deal
is reached for the ‘complete and total purchase of Greenland’.”[1]
Those states had just sent troops to Greenland as doing so would prevent Trump
from using military force to invade the island. The E.U. itself was inactive on
this military front even though the independent coordination between a few
states in sending troops lacked not only the united action, but also the
political leverage that the E.U. could have provided in pushing back against
Trump’s threats. That the E.U. is more than the sum of its parts (i.e., states)
seems perpetually to be lost on Europeans, whose primary political instinct
would be called “states’ rights” in American terms. In fact, the Euroskeptic
ideology has gone so far as to misconceive of the E.U. itself as merely a
trading “bloc,” such that adding competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign
policy and defense would by implication seem taboo.
Accordingly, rather than the
European Commission, the Parliament, and the Council coordinating legislative and
even “basic law” action to bolster the E.U.’s military reaction to Trump’s threats,
calls were instead for the E.U. to “deploy its ultimate anti-coercion tool
against the US . . .”[2]
That instrument had been adopted by the E.U. in 2023 “to combat political
blackmail through trade” and “would allow the E.U. to restrict third countries
from participating in public procurement tenders. Limit trade licenses and shut
off access to the single market.”[3]
The use of the instrument would be in accord with the mistaken, ideologically
convenient view that the E.U. is primarily a trade organization. Besides
misconstruing the E.U.’s three pillars as exclusively economic in nature, the “geopolitical
ramifications” of using the legislative instrument to “severely impact U.S.
services and products” would be extrinsic. Furthermore, if those ramifications
would cause the U.S. to militarily invade Greenland, the E.U. would have to
rely on its states to respond militarily. I submit that such a military
response would be suboptimal relative to a federal response.
President Trump’s geopolitical
close linkage of trade policy and military strategy with respect to Greenland
demonstrates just how deficient and costly the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic
ideology has been with respect to the E.U. being thought of as primarily
economic in nature. That the states sending troops to Greenland “reiterated
their ‘full solidarity’” with the E.U. state of Denmark is not the same as a foreign-policy
statement coming from the E.U.’s foreign minister. Even concerning the E.U.’s anti-coercion
law, that the E.U. states of Germany and France were planning on pushing “their
European partners to use all tools at their disposal” rather than work through
the E.U.’s Council, which represents the states, demonstrates the anti-federalist,
states’ rights ideology at work at the expense of federal action.[4]
To be sure, it is difficult for governors of states to give up power to a
federal level. The question is perhaps how deficient the E.U. must become in a changing
world in which trade is increasingly intertwined with geopolitical and even
military interests and activity before the E.U.’s state governments are willing
to delegate enough competencies, or enumerated powers, to the Union in foreign
policy and defense so the benefits of collective action can be realized. It is
significant that, “across the pond” from the E.U., U.S. President Trump was
happy to pit E.U. states against each other without any pushback with teeth from
President Von der Leyen.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Eleonora Vasques and Mared Gwyn Jones, “France and Germany Push to Use EU Anti-Coercion Tools If Trump’s New Tariffs Become Reality,” Euronews.com, 19 January, 2026.
