Washington/Davos, Jan 21 (UNI) The European Union's legislative body has paused work on the formal approval and implementation of a trade deal it had reached with the US last year. This comes after US President Donald Trump ramped up the rhetoric on acquiring Greenland, and threatened eight European countries who didn't support his stance with tariffs.
"Given the continued and escalating threats, including tariff threats, against Greenland and Denmark, and their European allies, we have been left with no alternative but to suspend work" on the deal, said Bernd Lange, the chairman of the European Parliament's international trade committee.
"Until the US decides to re-engage on a path of cooperation rather than confrontation," no steps to move the deal forward would be taken," Lange said.
"Our sovereignty and territorial integrity are at stake," he added in a post on X.
The announcement came after Trump on Saturday said he would hit seven European union countries, plus the UK, with tariffs if they did not allow the United States to control Greenland.
On January 18, President Trump threatened to impose a 10% tariff on eight European nations—including Denmark, France, Germany, and the UK—unless they agreed to negotiate the sale of Greenland
What did the EU trade deal involve?
The core of the deal was cap on US tariffs applied to most imports from the EU at just 15%.
The rate was among the lowest received by any trading partner last year. Some imports from the EU, such as generic pharmaceuticals would have had all tariffs removed. In exchange for the lower tariff rate, the European Union, America's largest trading partner, would have lowered tariffs on some goods it imports from the US.
The total trading relationship between the U.S. and E.U. was worth $1.5 trillion in goods and services annually, as of 2024. The US imports more than $600 billion in goods from the bloc each year on average, while Europeans buy more than $360 billion of US goods, according to data from the US Trade Representative.
When the so-called "Turnberry deal" was first announced, the European Commission hailed its potential, saying it "restores stability and predictability." But all that changed with Trump's Saturday tariff threat.
During his Davos speech, Trump said that the US would not use force to seize Greenland. But he did not take his threat of 10% tariff starting Feb. 1 off the table.
As long as Trump's tariff threat remains in place, "There will be no possibility for compromise" Lange said.
On Thursday, leaders of the 27 EU countries are to meet to discuss their coordinated response to Trump's Greenland threats.
This may include retaliatory tariffs worth nearly $110 billion, which would impact US exports, from Boeing airplanes to soybeans to Kentucky bourbon.
In July 2025, the European Commission reached an agreement with the Trump administration to avert potential a trade war between the two major global trading powers. The agreement was later called the ‘Turnberry deal’ because it was reached at the American president’s Scottish golf course.
The deal also contains commitments on the EU side to buy US military equipment and to purchase enormous amounts of gas from US suppliers.
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