Geopolitics Weekly analyzes emerging geopolitical trends around the world, distilling the cacophony of global events into one easy reader. It lands in the inbox of Geopolitical Monitor subscribers every week.
Europe
Trump Announces 25% Tariff as Europe Rallies around Greenland
What Happened
The matter of Greenland’s future continues to heat up:
- President Trump has consistently signaled that military occupation remains a possibility if a deal isn’t reached.
- Public demonstrations opposing a US invasion have been held in Greenland and Copenhagen.
- A White House summit with a joint Denmark-Greenland delegation failed to defuse tensions.
- Denmark announced that it would increase its military footprint in Greenland; a small European ‘reconnaissance mission’ was also deployed, consisting of Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK.
- President Trump threatened a new 10% tariff on European allies supporting Greenland, with the tariff increasing to 25% on June 1.
Why It Matters
- The Crucible of EU Strategic Autonomy? Maligning NATO has been a constant feature of Trumpian politics, though interestingly, the Alliance remains broadly popular in the US public. With the Greenland saga comes a crisis of confidence on the European side, wrapped in the evidently legitimate fear that the EU will remain vulnerable to US coercion so long as it doesn’t advance its strategic autonomy across a range of fields: military, economy, technology, information, etc. Danish Premier Mette Frederiksen is correct in asserting that a US attack on Greenland would mean the end of NATO; how can a collective security alliance continue to exist when the killer is ‘inside the house’? But to some extent, the damage is already done. Regardless of what happens next, we’re seeing a normalization of anti-NATO politics (which President Macron has embraced as per French tradition) and a normalization of territorial annexation by force, once the central taboo of the post-WWII global order. Both will continue to resonate in trans-Atlantic relations whatever the outcome in Greenland and whoever eventually succeeds President Trump.
- TACO Geopolitics. The European deployment to Greenland is not meant to repel the full force of the US military. Even if the force was more significant, the Europeans would be at a severe disadvantage projecting power this far from the continent. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to deter a US move by increasing political and diplomatic costs. A swift and unopposed occupation is a far different proposition than a shooting war, however brief, with your erstwhile European allies. The optics would be especially heavy given that only 17% of Americans support Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland overall, and just 10% by military force. The European approach appears to be working, with President Trump now pivoting to the threat of tariffs rather than kinetic force. Yet tariffs have their own pitfalls. For one, they further reinforce the need for European strategic autonomy, as noted above. And two, they invite escalatory moves that had hitherto been avoided, with President Macron now openly calling for invoking the Anti-Coercion Instrument, or ‘trade bazooka,’ against the United States. These costs could arguably be absorbed by the US side under the assumption that the Europeans will eventually relent under pressure and sign away Greenland to US ownership. But this is not a safe assumption.
Asia
Taiwan and US Sign Tariff Deal: 15% Tariffs for $250 Billion in Semiconductor Investments
What Happened
The U.S. and Taiwan announced a comprehensive tariff deal on January 15. The text, billed as a ‘massive reshoring of America’s semiconductor sector,’ calls on Taiwan’s semiconductor industry to make $250 billion worth of new investments in semiconductor, energy, and artificial intelligence capacity in the United States. In exchange, Taiwanese exports receive a tariff cap of 15%.
