Trump’s latest tariff threat — a 10% levy on select European nations, rising to 25% by June unless he “gets control of Greenland” — has turned a running spectacle into a high-stakes test of transatlantic relations, Federal Reserve independence and political resolve in Washington. The move over Greenland, paired with a drumbeat of domestic legal offensives, signals not a passing provocation but a strategy designed to force binary outcomes: he wins or he loses, Europe wins or it loses. There is little middle ground left.
For years, the useful maxim about the president has been to take him seriously but not literally. A tariff schedule with a countdown clock, tied to an island’s sovereignty, demands literal reading. European institutions are treating it as such. After a period of calm under a 15% general U.S.-EU tariff rate — with 10% for the U.K. — the European Parliament now appears set to stall ratification of that provisional deal, with party leaders likely to halt the process in direct response to the Greenland-linked measures. The set piece at Davos this week, where Trump is due to speak, looms as an inflection point.
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Much of Europe’s dilemma is structural. Do governments that have dispatched token reconnaissance units to Nuuk get tariffed while others skate by? If more capitals send symbolic forces in a Spartacus-like show of defiance, does the tariff net widen? The risk of divide-and-conquer is obvious: reward those who abstain, punish those who resist, and fracture EU unity. That puts countries with intertwined economic and political loyalties — Ireland, with its U.S.-dependent economy and recent memory of EU solidarity, and Italy, led by Georgia Meloni, whose rapport with Trump has earned her a “Trump Whisperer” tag — in a vise.
There is a Brexit-era playbook for this: don’t take the bait; keep calm; let the anti-coercion instrument do its work; prioritize consistency; above all, stay united. Yet Greenland is an odd hill to die on. Polling cited in recent days suggests most Americans don’t want a fight over the island. Foreign policy professionals are baffled; even core MAGA media has been tentative. But the tactical risk for Europe is clear: an unnecessary transatlantic rupture strengthens the very rivals Brussels has sought to contain. As historian Timothy Garton Ash put it, Europe faces pressure “militarily from Russia, economically from China, and politically from America.” A tariff brawl over Greenland tightens that vise while handing Moscow and Beijing a strategic dividend.
The tariff salvo also arrives amid intensifying U.S. domestic confrontations that accelerate the administration’s break with Washington’s guardrails. The most consequential is the move by prosecutors in Washington to investigate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for allegedly lying to Congress about the scope and cost of the central bank’s Washington headquarters renovation — a complex $2.5 billion project to extend the building underground in a city with strict height limits and a swampy substructure. The government’s spending watchdog cites a “vegetated roof”; Powell told lawmakers there was “no rooftop garden.” The administration’s allies deride the project as extravagance. Supporters counter that the Fed, like any central bank, makes money — and, by one Bloomberg estimate, the cost per square foot undercuts that of the new White House ballroom.
Powell, who has served under four presidents, punched back with unusual force. In a video statement released moments after the case was made public, he said: “This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings… Those are pretexts. The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.” He added that the fight was about whether the Fed would continue to set rates based on evidence, not “political pressure or intimidation.”
The institutional stakes are stark. Markets can price jawboning. They struggle to price the overt politicization of monetary policy. U.S. 10-year borrowing costs remain elevated by global standards; the political premium cannot be dismissed. Powell’s term as chair ends in May, and the White House has floated names for a successor, even as reports suggest Powell could stay on the board to serve out his mandate — and, by staying visible, underline the Fed’s independence.
Pushback from within the president’s party underlines the risk. Sen. Thom Tillis wrote that any remaining doubt about efforts “to end the independence of the Federal Reserve” should be gone, and he threatened to oppose any Fed nominees until the matter is resolved. Tillis also criticized the Greenland policy while traveling with a congressional delegation in Copenhagen, linking institutional independence at home to strategic steadiness abroad.
Elsewhere, legal warfare is widening. Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to appear before the House Oversight Committee’s Epstein probe, citing precedent for written submissions and lack of relevant testimony. A contempt referral to the Justice Department — overseen by Pam Bondi — is likely, with potential prison exposure reminiscent of penalties imposed on Trump allies Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for defying the Jan. 6 committee. The narrative of “lawfare,” deployed by both sides, now loops back on itself: yesterday’s cudgel is today’s shield.
The administration’s target list has expanded to state and federal officials long vilified in MAGA circles, including New York Attorney General Letitia James, former Special Counsel Jack Smith and former FBI Director James Comey. Active-duty politics are also in the crosshairs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s department is examining administrative sanctions against Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former astronaut, over a video reminding service members they must not obey illegal orders. Five other lawmakers who appeared in the video say they are under criminal investigation by the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro. Sen. Elissa Slotkin called the probe an attempt to silence dissent on foreign policy.
All of this unfolds against an anxious domestic backdrop. Protests have intensified after a fatal ICE shooting in Minneapolis, with the president threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act — a dramatic step — as demonstrations crest on the anniversary of his inauguration. Abroad, the docket is equally crowded: Iran, Venezuela, Gaza and now Greenland are competing for bandwidth. The throughline is attention as a governing currency. Trump floods the zone, forces choices, then dares institutions to match his velocity.
That strategy is beginning to meet resistance. Central banks anchor credibility by ignoring noise; Powell is betting that speaking plainly about pressure may preserve the Fed’s independence. Europe has spent two years steeling itself against coercion; unity, not speed, is its comparative advantage. If the EU absorbs the lesson of Brexit — keep calm and carry paperwork — it can deny Washington the split-screen the White House seems to want: a fractious Europe on one side, a dominant America on the other. The practical path is narrow but navigable: move the anti-coercion tools up the agenda, hold the tariff deal in reserve, and keep Greenland rhetoric out of trade mechanics.
The broader warning is simpler. This is not chaos. It is design. When tariffs tie the sovereignty of Greenland to the balance of transatlantic trade, when the chair of the Federal Reserve is hauled toward a criminal process over a “vegetated roof,” and when lawmakers face probes for cautioning against illegal orders, the message is that norms are negotiable and attention is the asset. The counter is equally clear: institutions must show they can absorb shock without becoming the story. Take the strategy seriously. Take the stakes literally.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
