EU's 'nuclear option' of moves against Trump tariff threat

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/eus-nuclear-option-moves-against-trump-tariff-threat-2025-07-21/

by JumpCrisscross • 6 months ago

14 4 6 months ago

Good. America has shown itself to be a risk. The EU must take the threat of an unstable and unpredictable America seriously. And at this point no one should assume Trump is joking when he says he will invade Greenland or cancel elections or whatever.

On the other hand, even if the EU heads towards anti coercion acting, it seems they may act too slowly:

The whole process could take a year, but could be sped up.

This slowness is already apparent. The recent troop deployment to Greenland just looks like theater since there were like 25 people sent. What does that achieve? It’s neither a deterrent or a serious defensive force. It’ll be hard to counter a fast moving executive branch (Trump) through these slow group based processes.

Someone• 6 months ago

Given its size, population density (it has about 35 km² per person), and remoteness I think posting a large permanent defense force on Greenland to guard against an US raid would be prohibitively expensive.

The best one could do probably would be navy patrols (also expensive, but patrolling there instead of closer to home doesn’t add that much), but even then, the US has a more powerful army and navy, Greenland is closer to the US than to the EU, and the US already has a military base on Greenland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pituffik_Space_Base)

dybber• 6 months ago

On the other hand, even if the EU heads towards anti coercion acting, it seems they may act too slowly: > The whole process could take a year, but could be sped up.

The effect of tariffs are also slow to kick in.

Anti coercion instrument is probably mostly thought of as a deterrent, nothing they will actually use. But maybe if Trump is dumb enough and doesn’t understand the implications. If they use certain element will probably done quickly, e.g. not allowing use companies to bid on EU projects, not allowing US companies to invest in EU, requiring all transactions when purchasing EU goods to be made in EUR instead of USD.

The recent troop deployment to Greenland just looks like theater since there were like 25 people sent. What does that achieve?

It achieves two things.

1) European countries can say they will ramp up protection from now on, have NATO exercises year round is on table. Moving exercises from other parts of the world to Greenland. This counters Trumps argument that this is about the security of Greenland. We will see bigger exercises at some point (naval exercises for example). These things take longer to plan.

2) The soldiers are from different nationalities. If US will use military force it will not just be against Denmark. US will have to take prisoners of war from a longer list of nations than just Denmark. Nations which also have soldiers helping out in various US bases around the world, so they will maybe also have to make French or German troops prisoners in some of their other bases, not just in Greenland. This effectively makes it much more expensive for the US, as they will not be able to isolate Denmark. And this is probably why a very quick and tiny exercise is being held.

aebtebeten• 6 months ago

just looks like theater

Very effective* theatre, considering how rapidly the brandished extortion has retreated from military to economic.

The soldiers are from different nationalities.

Exactly; see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46634146 and especially https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46630190

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* some claims (made by POTUS et al) that it has already falsified:

Claim: the issue is Greenland lacking defence.

Claim: no one will support Denmark.

EU's 'nuclear option' of moves against Trump tariff threat

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