Trump links threat of Nobel Peace Prize snub to Greenland, EU looks for trade retaliation

By John Irish and Nora Bulley

PARIS/OSLO, Jan 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump linked his campaign to take control of Greenland, failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and said on Monday he was not considering “pure peace” as the island dispute threatened to reignite a trade war with Europe.

Trump has stepped up efforts to wrest sovereignty over Greenland from fellow NATO member Denmark, threatening punitive tariffs on countries that stand in his way and prompting the European Union to weigh a return with its own measures.

The dispute is threatening the NATO alliance that has underpinned Western security for decades and which has been under strain over the war in Ukraine and Trump’s refusal to protect allies who do not spend enough on defense.

It has plunged trade relations between the EU and the US, the bloc’s biggest export market, into fresh uncertainty after the two sides laboriously reached a trade deal last year in response to Trump’s escalating tariffs.

In a written message to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Storey seen by Reuters, Trump said: “Since your country has decided not to award me the Nobel Peace Prize for stopping 8 wars, I no longer feel compelled to think entirely about peace, although it will always be paramount, but can now think about what is best for America.”

The Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Peace Prize to Machado, not Trump

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has angered Trump by awarding the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado instead of him. She presented her medal to Trump at a White House meeting last week, although the Nobel committee says the award cannot be transferred, shared or revoked.

In his message, Trump also reiterated Denmark’s inability to protect Greenland from Russia or China.

“… and why do they have ‘property rights’?” “The world is not safe until we have full and complete control of Greenland,” he wrote.

Trump promised to impose a wave of tax increases on EU member states Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland, as well as the UK and Norway from February 1, unless the US gives permission to buy Greenland, home to 57,000 people.

In a post on Facebook, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said the region should be allowed to decide its own fate.

“We will not allow ourselves to be pressured. We are committed to dialogue, respect and international law,” he said.

Talks with Trump in Davos?

Norway’s Støire announced that he will be attending the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday and Thursday, overlapping his planned appearance at the annual gathering of the global political and business elite, revising his schedule.

Stoyer was not scheduled to attend this year’s conference in the Swiss alpine resort, where Trump is expected to deliver the keynote address Wednesday at the event for the first time in six years.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also said he would try to meet with Trump on Wednesday, saying he did not want a trade dispute.

“But if we face tariffs that we think are unreasonable, then we are able to respond,” Merz said.

EU leaders will discuss their options at an emergency summit in Brussels on Thursday. One option is a package of tariffs on 93 billion euros ($108 billion) of U.S. imports that could kick in automatically on Feb. 6 after a six-month suspension.

Another option is the “Anti-Cercion Instrument” (ACI), which has never been used so far and which could limit access to public tenders, investment or banking activities or restrict trade in services, in which the US has a surplus with the bloc, including digital services.

The EU said it continued to engage with the US “at all levels” but said its use of the ACI was not off the table.

British Prime Minister Keir Starr called for calm discussions between the allies, adding that Trump was not considering military action to seize Greenland.

Russia declined to comment on whether US designs on Greenland were good or bad but said it was hard to disagree with experts that if Trump took control of the island it would “go down in world history”.

Markets panic

Trump’s threats have shocked European industry and sent shockwaves through financial markets amid fears of a return to the volatility of last year’s trade war, which eased only when the sides reached a tariff deal in the middle of the year.

“This latest flashpoint has raised concerns over a possible unraveling of the NATO alliance and disruption of last year’s trade deal with several European nations,” said Tony Sycamore, market analyst with IG in Sydney.

European shares were lower on Monday, while the dollar fell as investors piled into safe-haven currencies.

($1 = 0.8604 euros)

(Reporting by John Irish, Nora Bulley, Simon Johnson, Maria Martinez, Leigh Thomas; Christoph Steitz, Linda Pasquini, Elizabeth Piper, William James and Alistair Smout; Editing by Gareth Jones; Writing by Mathias Williams and Keith Weir)