Emmanuel Macron has called out Donald Trump’s “bullying” as European leaders united to prepare for a showdown with the US president over his demands for Greenland.
As Donald Trump doubled down on his demands for the Danish sovereign territory and exacerbated his threat of tariffs on allies who oppose the move with the shocking reveal of private texts he had received from Mr Macron and other world leaders, the french president said the EU should not bend to the “law of the strongest”, and should resist what he called “the new colonial approach”.
Just hours before Mr Trump is expected to arrive at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos to face international leaders, Mr Macron warned: “We prefer respect to bullies, we prefer science to conspiracies, and we prefer the rule of law to brutality.”
The unprecedented breakdown of relations between the US and its Western European allies comes as Mr Trump launched a blistering attack on the UK’s plans to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius as one of “great stupidity” – despite publicly welcoming the deal last year.
Former Nato Secretary General, Anders Rasmussen, a former prime minister of Denmark, warned that the Nato alliance, which has underpinned Western security since the end of the Second World War, is now on the brink of collapse because of Trump’s behaviour.
He told Times Radio: “It’s extremely serious. Actually, if that threat [taking over Greenland] comes to fruition, it will be the end of Nato. It doesn’t make sense to have a collective defence organisation where the major ally attacks another ally with the aim to take territory. So it would be the end of Nato.”
Sir Keir Starmer’s hopes that the UK could act as a bridge between America and Europe appeared to have evaporated after Mr Trump lashed out at the prime minister’s “stupid” deal to cede the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
The prime minister’s closest lieutenant, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Darren Jones, insisted Sir Keir’s approach to Mr Trump was yielding results, but admitted: “It’s not normal for geopolitical discussions to be handled in this way.”
The crisis has proven to be the biggest strain on the special relationship between the UK and the US since Harold Wilson refused to send British troops to Vietnam in the 1960s.
But Sir Keir risked igniting Trump’s rage further by agreeing to the new Chinese super embassy to be built in Royal Mint Court near the Tower of London despite MI5 warning that security risks could not be ruled out.
With anger growing in Switzerland ahead of President Trump touching down in the Alpine resort, EU leaders made it clear that they will deploy the toughest economic response possible to Trump’s threat of tariffs.
President Macron called for EU leaders to use the bloc’s so-called “big bazooka” of economic countermeasures.
“The anti-coercion mechanism is a powerful instrument, and we should not hesitate to deploy it in today’s tough environment,” he said.
Meanwhile, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen used her WEF speech to warn Trump that the EU’s response “will be unflinching, united and proportional”.
