Greenland live legal updates: EU leaders condemn Trump Greenland tariff threats as commercial blackmail

The joint declaration by António Costa, president of the European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, pledging full solidarity with Denmark and Greenland marks a defining legal and diplomatic moment in the most serious transatlantic crisis in decades. Their warning that United States tariff threats would “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral” is not political hyperbole. It is a precise legal assessment of how economic coercion, when deployed to extract territorial concessions, collides with the core principles of international law, European Union treaty obligations and the global trade regime.

Their statement, issued late Saturday, reaffirms that Europe will remain “united, coordinated, and committed to upholding its sovereignty”. That choice of language is deliberate. Sovereignty is not merely a political slogan but a binding legal principle embedded in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, in the founding treaties of the European Union, and in customary international law. When combined with the right of peoples to self determination, it forms the legal bedrock upon which Greenland’s status rests.

Greenland is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, recognised under Danish constitutional law and the Greenland Self Government Act of 2009. Internationally, the Greenlandic people are acknowledged as a people with the right to determine their political future. No external power may lawfully compel Denmark or Greenland to negotiate sovereignty through economic pressure. Any attempt to do so through punitive tariffs transforms trade policy into an instrument of coercion.

It is this transformation that Jordan Bardella, president of France’s National Rally party and a member of the European Parliament, described as “commercial blackmail” when he urged the European Union to suspend last year’s tariff deal with Washington. Coming from a figure often sceptical of EU integration, the statement carries particular weight. It reflects a rare convergence between the political centre and the far right on the legal character of the United States threat.

From the perspective of public international law, coercion aimed at forcing a sovereign outcome engages the prohibition on intervention in the affairs of another state. The International Court of Justice has repeatedly affirmed, most notably in the Nicaragua case, that states may not use economic measures to compel another state to surrender its sovereign choices. While sanctions and tariffs are lawful in many contexts, their legality depends on purpose and proportionality. When explicitly tied to the demand for territorial acquisition, they cross from diplomacy into unlawful pressure.

Trade law further constrains Washington’s position. Under the World Trade Organization framework, the United States is bound by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to apply tariffs in a non discriminatory manner and within agreed ceilings. Targeting Denmark and other European states with punitive duties unless Greenland is transferred to American control would breach the most favoured nation obligation and almost certainly exceed bound tariff rates.

The United States might seek refuge in the national security exception of Article XXI of GATT, arguing that Greenland is strategically vital for Arctic security and missile early warning systems. Yet recent WTO jurisprudence has made clear that this exception is not unlimited and must be invoked in good faith. Using it as leverage for territorial acquisition would be exceptionally difficult to defend before any neutral tribunal.

The EU is therefore legally entitled to respond. It could initiate dispute settlement proceedings at the WTO, impose proportionate countermeasures, or suspend trade concessions under Article 60 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties if it considers the tariff deal to be materially breached. Bardella’s call to suspend the agreement is legally viable, though politically contentious, because international trade treaties permit suspension in response to fundamental violations.

Costa and von der Leyen’s statement signals that Brussels is preparing for precisely this scenario. Their insistence on unity and coordination reflects the EU’s exclusive competence over common commercial policy under Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Individual member states cannot lawfully negotiate separate tariff arrangements with Washington, nor can they independently waive EU rights. The legal response must therefore be collective.

The deeper issue, however, is not merely trade compliance but the integrity of the international legal order. Since 1945, the prohibition on acquiring territory by force or coercion has been one of the few near absolute rules of global conduct. While the United States has historically been a principal architect and defender of this rule, the current policy direction undermines it.

If economic pressure becomes an accepted tool for territorial acquisition, the precedent would extend far beyond the Arctic. It would legitimise similar tactics by other powers in contested regions, from Eastern Europe to the South China Sea. This is why European leaders increasingly frame the Greenland dispute not as a bilateral disagreement but as a systemic threat to international stability.

There are also immediate institutional consequences. The European Parliament must approve any major EU US trade agreement. With senior lawmakers now openly questioning ratification, the future of last year’s tariff deal is in jeopardy. A collapse of that agreement would disrupt billions of euros in trade, unsettle financial markets and reinforce the very uncertainty that the International Monetary Fund has repeatedly warned is corrosive to global growth.

In this context, the Costa and von der Leyen declaration functions as both a legal notice and a strategic warning. It places the United States on record as being viewed by its closest allies not merely as a difficult negotiating partner but as a potential violator of foundational legal norms.

Jordan Bardella’s intervention adds an additional layer of political pressure. By labelling the threats commercial blackmail, he echoes terminology more commonly used in international criminal law to describe coercive economic practices. While not a formal legal classification, the phrase captures the essence of the alleged wrongdoing: the use of economic harm to extract a sovereign concession.

For Denmark and Greenland, the stakes are existential. For the European Union, they are constitutional. For the international system, they are structural. The joint statement from the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission therefore represents more than diplomatic solidarity. It is a declaration that Europe intends to defend, through law as much as through politics, the principle that borders cannot be bought or bullied into submission.

Whether Washington heeds that warning will determine not only the future of Greenland but also the credibility of the rules based international order in the twenty first century.