As Trump turns screws, how long can Europe play nice?

BRUSSELS - One head-spinning year down, three more to go.

Buffeted by a US superpower turned hostile under US President Donald Trump, Europe is struggling to set red lines as its once-close ally attacks its laws, eggs on the far-right – and threatens its sovereignty in Greenland.

Any lingering doubts over the shifting winds in Washington were laid to rest with the release of December’s US security strategy
taking most virulent aim not at China or Russia, but at the European Union.

Europe had barely absorbed that shock when it was blind sided by the US president’s vow to wrest mineral-rich Greenland
from EU and NATO member Denmark – by force if need be.

European nations scrambled a military mission to Greenland to try to defuse Mr Trump’s threat – but pushing back at the US president is easier said than done.

“Telling Trump ‘You can’t do that,’ is not language that he understands,” summed up one EU diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

“We must appease Trump, not poke the beast.”

The bottom line is that Europe’s hands are tied: the continent is surging defence spending to break its security reliance on the United States – but for now, it still needs US help to end the Ukraine war, and deter the looming Russian threat to its east.

In that spirit leaders have stopped well short of calling out Mr Trump’s threats – levied right as the Europeans held crunch talks with US envoys on locking in post-war security guarantees for Ukraine.

Instead, they have reached for their now-familiar Mr Trump playbook: avoid escalation at all costs, and work to mollify the US president – until the next time.

The half-dozen Europeans with a direct line to Mr Trump, from France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni to NATO chief Mark Rutte, can claim some successes with this strategy, namely in clawing back a seat at the table of talks to end the Ukraine war.

But as Denmark’s leader Mette Frederiksen warned this week, with three quarters of Mr Trump’s presidency left to run, there is reason to expect “the most challenging part” is yet to come.

And Europe may not be able to play nice forever.

Election tests loom

Mr Trump’s threats to Greenland are just one part of the picture.

A trade stand off with Washington in 2025 saw Europe strong-armed into what was widely seen as a lopsided deal.

Since then, Team Trump has pressed an all-out assault branding Europe’s civilisation moribund, imposing sanctions over digital rules it calls censorship, and vowing to boost political forces aligned with the president’s MAGA ideology.

Strongman Viktor Orban can expect the weight of US foreign policy behind him in Hungary’s April elections, with Mr Elon Musk’s X acting as a force multiplier for hard-right narratives.

And France’s 2027 election looms as a key test.

Mr Trump’s camp has “formulated quite clearly” it would welcome a far-right win in the nuclear-armed EU heavyweight, said Ms Tara Varma, European policy expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

“We have to take them at their word,” she warned, saying Europe needs to rethink tools designed to counter political meddling from regimes like Russia – to meet the new US threat.

A ‘bazooka’ for Greenland?

The spectre of MAGA-fuelled interference feeds into the critical issue of whether the EU has the mettle to keep US tech giants in check.

So far, the EU has stared down threats of US retaliation to keep enforcing its laws against online abuses and disinformation, with fines on X and others.

But even penalties in the hundreds of millions are seen as small fry for the likes of Mr Musk – who pours expletive-laden scorn on the EU and its rules.

So what more can Europe do to try to turn the tables?

Simple, say advocates of tougher action: play the economic card, as America’s biggest bilateral trade partner.

When it comes to Greenland, European law professor Alberto Alemanno says the bloc’s “most tangible threat” to deter Mr Trump is freezing the US trade deal – an idea gaining ground in the EU Parliament.

The tough question is where to draw the line.

“Do we need the territorial integrity of the European Union to be breached? Do we need to see boots on the ground, to see the Americans entering into Greenland, in order to justify this?” asked Prof Alemanno.

Beyond that, the bloc has a powerful weapon called the anti-coercion instrument – never used before – that allows for curbing imports of goods and services and has been invoked as a way to push back over tech and trade, and now Greenland.

Deploying the trade “bazooka,” as it is dubbed, is one idea being brainstormed in Brussels but still seen as a long shot.

“Europe has a number of cards up its sleeve – and it’s chosen consciously or unconsciously not to use them,” said the German Marshall Fund’s Ms Varma.

But at some point, she warned, “it might have to.” AFP