ISTANBUL
Denmark’s European affairs minister on Tuesday said that the EU should respond “robustly” to new tariff threats by US President Donald Trump.
“I think we need to find some robust answers. And it needs to be a united response from Europe,” Marie Bjerre told Danish public radio DR.
Trump has threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on European goods, on top of the 15% duties announced last year, a move Bjerre described as “deeply unfair” and “untenable.”
“We are on the edge of a new world order, where power has unfortunately become crucial, and we see a US with an enormously condescending rhetoric towards Europe,” Bjerre said.
Her remarks come amid growing criticism in the EU of a trade agreement reached with Washington last summer, which imposed 15% US tariffs on most EU goods in exchange for the bloc removing duties on US industrial products and some agricultural goods.
The deal, negotiated by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to avoid a full-scale trade war, has been partially implemented but still requires final approval by the European Parliament.
Following Trump’s new tariff threat, the largest political group in the parliament has signaled it may seek to scrap the agreement.
“It was an incredibly hard deal for European countries to swallow because the 15% tariff was imposed unilaterally one way, and now there is a threat of another 10% on top,” Bjerre said.
“At some point you have to say: enough is enough.”
She acknowledged that the EU accepted the agreement partly due to its security dependence on the US, but warned that this reliance could not be exploited indefinitely.
Bjerre said the EU was not yet considering broad retaliatory tariffs, but could look at “strategic countermeasures” targeting specific US products, similar to steps taken in 2018 when the bloc imposed duties on goods such as motorcycles, jeans and bourbon.
“We have to look at what makes sense to respond with. It may also make sense to keep some of the powder dry,” she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron has recently suggested the EU could consider deploying its so-called “trade bazooka,” a powerful instrument allowing wide-ranging countermeasures, but Bjerre said any such step must be carefully weighed.
Bjerre also stressed that the EU’s size gave it significant leverage if member states acted together.
“We are 450 million Europeans. We are a very, very lucrative internal market, if we manage to stand together,” she said.