In a single post on Saturday night, President Trump upended months of progress on trade negotiations with an ultimatum that puts Europe on a crash course with the United States — long its closest ally and suddenly one of its biggest threats.
In the Truth Social post, Mr. Trump demanded a deal to buy Greenland, saying that otherwise he would slap tariffs on a group of European nations, first 10 percent in February, then 25 percent in June.
It appeared to leave little room for Europe to maneuver or negotiate in a harsh and combative era of geopolitics. It also left Europe with few options to counter Mr. Trump without repercussions.
European leaders are loath to accept the forced takeover of an autonomous territory that is controlled by Denmark, a member of both NATO and the European Union.
Officials and outside analysts increasingly argue that Europe will need to respond to Mr. Trump with force — namely by hitting back on trade. But doing so could come at a heavy cost to both the bloc’s economy and its security, since Europe remains heavily reliant on the United States for support through NATO and in Russia’s war with Ukraine.
“We either fight a trade war, or we’re in a real war,” said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a research institute in Brussels.
Europeans have spent more than a year insisting that Greenland is not for sale and have constantly repeated that the fate of the massive northern island must be decided by its people and by Denmark. Last week, a group of European nations sent personnel to Greenland for military exercises — a show of solidarity that may have triggered Mr. Trump, since the same nations are the ones to be slapped with tariffs.
The exercises were intended to reinforce Europe’s commitment to policing the Arctic. Mr. Trump has insisted that the United States needs to own Greenland to improve security in the region.
In that sense, the display was part of an ongoing effort to placate Mr. Trump. For weeks, officials across Europe had dismissed Mr. Trump’s threats to take Greenland, even by military force, as unlikely. Many saw them more as negotiating tactics and hoped that they could satisfy the American president with a willingness to beef up defense and spending on Greenland.
But Mr. Trump’s fixation on owning the island and his escalating rhetoric is crushing European hopes that appeasement and dialogue will work. Scott Bessent, the American Treasury secretary, doubled down on that message in a Sunday morning interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
American ownership of Greenland would be “best for Greenland, best for Europe and best for the United States,” Mr. Bessent said, suggesting that would be the case even if Greenland were taken by military force.
“The European leaders will come around,” he added.
There is little sign of that. Facing the reality that a negotiated compromise is less and less likely, Europeans are now racing to figure out how to respond to Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.
Within hours of the post, members of the European Parliament announced that they would freeze the ratification of the trade deal that Mr. Trump and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, struck last summer. And members of European Parliament are openly calling for trade retaliation.
Ambassadors from across the 27-nation bloc gathered in Brussels on Sunday for an emergency meeting, where they took stock of the situation and had very early discussions about a possible response, said three diplomats briefed on the gathering.
Hitting back is complicated.
Europe has a trade weapon specifically created to defend against political coercion quickly and forcefully, and as Mr. Trump’s threats sank in, policymakers argued that this is the time to wield it.
The tool — officially called the “anti-coercion instrument,” unofficially called Europe’s trade “bazooka” — could be used to slap limitations on big American technology companies or other service providers that do large amounts of business on the continent. Some leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, overtly called for its use.
But tapping it would sharply ratchet up trans-Atlantic tensions. Europe has spent the past year avoiding such escalation, and for a reason. The continent remains deeply reliant on the United States for NATO protection and for support against Russia in the war on Ukraine, so a full-on trade war could have consequences on other fronts.
“I don’t think the issue here is to create an escalation,” Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister of Italy, told reporters on Sunday in a televised news conference. “I believe it is rather to try to engage in dialogue.”
European officials are also entertaining the possibility of allowing a list of retaliatory tariffs worth 93 billion euros, or $107 billion — drawn up during last year’s trade war — to snap into place in February. That would put levies on American goods, a less drastic move than the trade bazooka but still an effort to stand up to the United States.
António Costa, the president of the European Council, which gives the European Union political direction, announced on Sunday that he had “decided to convene an extraordinary meeting” of European leaders in the coming days. An E.U. official added that the meeting might be in person, and could take place on Thursday.
That would allow prime ministers and presidents from across the bloc to discuss how they will respond to Mr. Trump. It would also come just as, or before, many European policymakers head to Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum meetings. Mr. Trump will also be attending — creating a chance for conversation.
While many European leaders are still hoping that they might be able to talk things out, discussions have been all but futile so far.
Foreign policy officials from Denmark and Greenland met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance in Washington last week. Afterward, the Danes and Greenlanders acknowledged that the two sides remained at an impasse, but expressed hope.
The two sides, they noted, had agreed to set up a high-level working group to work through their issues.
That optimism was quickly snuffed out when the White House said that the group was meant to work on America’s “acquisition” of Greenland.
“This is just all brute force,” said Penny Naas, an expert on European public policy at the German Marshall Fund, a research institution. “The president really wants Greenland, and he’s not backing off of it.”
Greenland shows little sign of wanting to be acquired, by money or by military force. Greenlanders have at times chafed at Danish power, but polls and interviews indicate that most don’t want to give up their free education and universal health care.
As Mr. Trump takes on a more aggressive posture, European leaders have been growing blunter about the need to fight back.
Mr. Macron, of France, wrote on social media on Saturday night that “no intimidation nor threat will influence us.” Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister of Sweden, wrote that “we will not let ourselves be blackmailed.”
Even Keir Starmer, the prime minister of Britain — which, like Norway, is not in the European Union, but was listed among the countries that will be slapped with tariffs — has pushed back. Mr. Starmer has carefully cultivated a positive relationship with the White House.
He was one of several officials who spoke to Mr. Trump on Sunday afternoon. He told him that “applying tariffs on allies for pursuing the collective security of NATO allies is wrong,” Mr. Starmer’s spokesman said.
Lizzie Dearden contributed reporting from London, Elisabetta Povoledo from London, Minho Kim from Washington and Ségolène Le Stradic from Paris.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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