Ireland welcomes withdrawal of Greenland tariff threat

Simon Harris said the “significant development” gave “credence and credibility” to the EU’s strategy which he said was defined by maintaining “cool heads”. Picture: PA

The withdrawal of the threat of additional tariffs on European countries by US president Donald Trump is “a welcome development”, the Tánaiste has said.

Mr Trump had threatened a 10% tariff on eight European allies from February 1 unless they agree to his purchase of Greenland.

During a speech to world leaders at Davos on Wednesday, he reiterated demands for immediate negotiations to acquire the Arctic territory while ruling out using force.

Ireland, although not among the eight countries threatened, had said tariffs on some member states amounted to tariffs on all member states.

Mr Trump later rowed back on the threat of the tariffs, stating he Nato secretary general Mark Rutte had “formed the framework of a future deal” for the Arctic region.

Simon Harris said the “significant development” gave “credence and credibility” to the EU’s strategy which he said was defined by maintaining “cool heads” and not responded to “every bit of political noise” nor “every Truth Social post”.

In a statement, he said: “There’s much detail to emerge, and there’s still obviously much volatility, but today we have heard the President of the United States rule out force in relation to Greenland.

“We’ve also now seen in the last number of minutes him withdraw as a threat of additional tariffs.

“But it is important we continue to work collectively as a European Union, and collectively to stand up for the sovereignty of Denmark and Greenland — Greenland being a part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

“And also collectively work to seek the full implementation of the trade agreements that we already agreed with the US administration – an agreement that is key to protecting economic activity on both sides of the Atlantic.”

US President Donald Trump (Suzanne Plunkett/PA)

Mr Harris had earlier warned that US tariffs imposed on European countries could create a “spiral of events” that have a potentially “enormous” impact on economies and markets, Ireland’s deputy premier has said.

He said it was difficult to model the potential impact of such tariffs – as it could be part of a fundamental change in the transatlantic relationship.

He said that if the US were to annex Greenland that would “fundamentally alter the transatlantic relationship” and said that that in turn could create a “spiral of events and retaliatory events” across economies and markets.

“You can run a model that if there’s a 15% tariff applied on a country – and we did this before and published it – that would have an effect on what we call ‘modified domestic demand’, effectively growth, by 1.4% to 1.5% annually over a medium term, that it would result in roughly around 60,000 fewer jobs being created if there were tariffs.

“But what those models can’t capture is what happens if the transatlantic relationship, as we know it, doesn’t exist into the future.”