By Andrew Gray
BRUSSELS, Jan 20 (Reuters) – The time for flattering Donald Trump is over and Europe should hit back hard economically if the U.S. imposes tariffs on NATO allies that sent troops to Greenland, ex-NATO boss and former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Tuesday.
Rasmussen said Trump’s insistence that Greenland – a semi-autonomous Danish territory – should become part of the United States represented the biggest challenge to NATO since its establishment in 1949.
“It’s really the future of NATO that is at stake,” said Rasmussen, who offers a unique perspective on the crisis as a former leader of both Denmark – from 2001 to 2009 – and NATO, where he served as secretary general from 2009 to 2014.
“The time for flattering is over. It doesn’t work. The fact is Trump only respects force and strength. And unity. That’s exactly what Europe should demonstrate right now,” he told Reuters from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
PROPOSES PLAN TO DEFUSE CRISIS
Rasmussen said he was not criticising leaders such as current NATO boss Mark Rutte, who has lavished praise on Trump. But he said it was time for a new approach from Europe.
He said the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument – the so-called “bazooka” that confers broad powers to retaliate against economic pressure – should be on the table after Trump threatened tariffs on eight European nations until the U.S. is allowed to buy Greenland.
Trump says U.S. ownership of Greenland is vital for national security.
He told Norway’s prime minister on Sunday, in an exchange of text messages, he had “done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States”.
Rasmussen proposed a three-point plan to defuse the crisis. It includes an update of a 1951 agreement between the United States and Denmark that allows U.S. forces and military bases on Greenland to include a strengthened NATO presence there.
It also includes an investment pact to help U.S. and European firms extract minerals in Greenland and “a stabilisation and resilience compact” to prevent Chinese and Russian investments in critical sectors there, he said.
Rasmussen said he had not presented the plan to Danish or other government officials but would discuss it with delegates in Davos.
“I hope that an infusion of something concrete could bring this whole discussion into a more constructive phase,” he said.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray;Editing by Alison Williams)
