Europe’s relationship with the United States has taken a beating this week, and leaders from across the European Union’s 27 nations will gather in Brussels on Thursday evening to take stock of the damage and plan for the future.
President Trump appeared to back away from his threats to acquire Greenland on Wednesday night, after announcing on Saturday that he would impose tariffs on a number of European countries that seemed to be standing in his way.
But his overt attempts to force Europe to let the United States have the large Arctic island — a sovereign territory of Denmark, which belongs to both the E.U. and NATO — sent shock waves across the continent that are still reverberating.
Mr. Trump’s administration has spent months menacing Europe. The White House slapped 15 percent across-the-board tariffs on E.U. nations last year, after threatening even higher ones. It released a national security strategy in December that said Europe was facing “civilizational erasure” and endorsed efforts to sway its elections toward nationalist parties.
And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump made clear in a rambling speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he disdains the direction the continent has taken, criticizing its regulations and immigration policies.
Up to this point, Europe has approached the situation by trying to act like the adult in a chaotic room. Its leaders have avoided escalation, flattered Mr. Trump and hoped that his worst threats would never materialize.
But officials around the world, and across the bloc, increasingly say they may need a stronger strategy.
“The shift in the international order is not only seismic, but it is permanent,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on Wednesday morning.
The point of the European Council meeting on Thursday, which will gather presidents and prime ministers for a dinner in downtown Brussels at 7 p.m. local time (1 p.m. Eastern), is to figure out what to do. It was called in response to Mr. Trump’s Greenland threats, but it has been framed more broadly, as an assessment of the E.U.’s relationship with the United States.
There is almost no area of European policy that Mr. Trump’s second term — just a year old — is not reshaping.
He has upended the rules of the global trading system. He has prodded Ukraine to consider a peace deal with Russia, though it is not clear yet whether the two sides will accept one. He has insisted that European nations sharply increase their own defense spending. He has called into question Europe’s digital regulations and its approach to climate change.
While Thursday’s meeting is unlikely to result in any major conclusions, it will give leaders a chance to assess those challenges and — most urgently — to discuss the possible contours of a deal to de-escalate tensions over Greenland.
Jeanna Smialek is the Brussels bureau chief for The Times.
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