French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday in an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the European Union (EU) “should not hesitate to apply the anti-coercion mechanism” in response to threats of introducing tariffs over Greenland.
“The anti-coercion mechanism is a powerful instrument, and we should not hesitate to apply it in today’s difficult environment,” Macron said in Davos.
He was reacting to aggressive United States (U.S.) trade pressures and the “endless accumulation of new tariffs.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to introduce additional tariffs on countries that have sent soldiers to Greenland and is not abandoning his intention to take control of the large Arctic island, which is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Macron said that Trump’s threats to introduce additional tariffs over Greenland could lead the EU to apply the anti-coercion mechanism for the first time, and that against the U.S. That mechanism could potentially restrict access to European markets for U.S. companies.
“Can you imagine that? That’s crazy,” Macron said, adding that he regretted it, but that it was a consequence solely of “unpredictability and unnecessary aggressiveness.”
“There is no sense in having tariffs and being divided and even now threatening allies with additional tariffs,” Macron said in Davos.
He said that “we should not waste time on crazy ideas” and rejected “new imperialism or colonialism.”
Furthermore, he said that now is not the time to open “Pandora’s box of new topics,” but that now is the time for cooperation, in order to address three main global challenges – growth, peace, and climate.
He spoke about how Europe should respond to tougher U.S. and Chinese trade policy.
Moreover, he said that Europe needs to be more realistic about how it responds to this, since there are sectors such as the chemical and automotive industries that are “literally being killed” by unequal conditions.
He said that instead of disputes over trade, allied countries should focus on bringing peace to Ukraine.
The French president pointed to a shift toward a “world without rules, where international law is trampled and where the only law that applies is the law of the strongest.”
He also warned that leading powers are turning their backs on international bodies that have long supported the global order.
“Let us not accept a global order that will be decided by those who claim to have a bigger voice and a bigger stick,” Macron said yesterday in Davos.
