President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened many international locations with tariffs for many different reasons.
On Monday, he discovered a brand new goal for his favourite financial device. Mr Trump stated he would “tariff Denmark at a really excessive stage” if it refused to permit Greenland – a North American island that’s an autonomous territory throughout the Kingdom of Denmark – to turn out to be a part of the US.
“They’ve to offer it up as a result of we want it for nationwide safety,” Mr. Trump stated of Greenland.
Denmark, which has a smaller inhabitants than New York Metropolis, isn’t a serious buying and selling associate for the US. The nation – a US ally and NATO member – despatched the US greater than $11 billion worth of goods in 2023, only a fraction of over $3 trillion in imports. The USA, for its half, sends Denmark over $5 billion in items, together with industrial equipment, computer systems, plane, and scientific devices.
However regardless of its small dimension, Denmark, which handles Greenland’s overseas affairs and safety points, is house to some merchandise which are well-loved in America, items that would turn out to be costlier if Mr. Trump follows go well with. excessive customs duties. Based on the Observatory of Economic Complexitycommerce information platform, roughly half of Denmark’s current exports to the US are packaged medicine, insulin, vaccines and antibiotics.
That is largely as a result of the nation is house to Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, the favored weight-loss medicine. The corporate is so vital to the Danish financial system – it has been reported recently half of Denmark’s personal sector job progress and the entire nation’s financial progress – that some have described Denmark as “pharmastate.“
New Nordisk is increasing its production in the US to satisfy with the growing demand for its GLP-1 weight loss products. The corporate doesn’t publicly specify how a lot of its manufacturing is exported, however it manufactures medicine in Denmark and the US for the American market.
A spokesman for Novo Nordisk stated in an announcement that they’re intently monitoring the state of affairs, however is not going to touch upon hypotheses or hypothesis.
Gilberto García, chief economist at Datawheel and a member of the Observatory of Financial Complexity staff, stated Denmark’s exports of immunology merchandise, which embrace medicine corresponding to Ozempic, “are rising exponentially”.
Denmark can also be the main provider of listening to aids to the US, he stated.
In addition to medication, Denmark additionally sends the US medical devices, fish fillets, pork, coal tar oil, oil and baked items, amongst different merchandise, in keeping with the OEC.
And particularly, for a lot of youngsters (and adults) Denmark is house to the Lego Group, the world’s the largest toy manufacturer.
It is unclear how a lot Lego exports straight from Denmark to the US — the corporate serves a lot of the U.S. market from a manufacturing unit in Mexico, in addition to a brand new carbon-neutral facility in Virginia. It additionally manufactures toy bricks in factories in Hungary, the Czech Republic, China and Vietnam, in addition to Denmark. Lego didn’t reply to requests for remark.
However Lego, like different multinational corporations which have world provide chains shifting uncooked supplies and merchandise world wide, may see its enterprise disrupted by the tariffs. Mr. Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on merchandise coming into the US from Mexico, China and different international locations world wide, along with Denmark.
Mr Trump’s threats to assert Greenland got here at a muddled information convention wherein the president-elect additionally recommended we must always take again the Panama Canal and make Canada a US state, all statements that angered overseas leaders.
Mr Trump stated on Tuesday that US possession of Greenland was a matter of nationwide safety, given the paths drawn by Russian and Chinese language ships.
“Greenland belongs to the individuals of Greenland,” Prime Minister of Greenland Mute Egede wrote on Facebook Tuesday. “Our future and the battle for independence is our job.”
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the European Fee referred to as Mr Trump’s feedback concerning the Greenland seizure “hypothetical”. Requested about tariff threats, the spokesman stated the European Fee was getting ready for all of the doable penalties of a Trump presidency on commerce in Europe.
Jacob Funk Kierkegaard, a senior fellow in Brussels on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics, stated few politicians in Europe have been taking Mr. Trump’s phrases actually.
“It is an outrageous request,” Kierkegaard stated of Trump’s threats to grab Greenland. “The one method you’ll be able to logically give it some thought is that by making this outrageous demand, Trump goes to get some concessions that he would not get in any other case.”
Mr Kirkegaard stated if Mr Trump adopted by way of on his menace to impose tariffs on Denmark, he may anticipate a backlash throughout the EU. “This concept that he can squeeze Denmark as the one EU member state, supply political concessions by way of the specter of tariffs, will provoke retaliation from your complete EU.”
Throughout his first time period, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on many international locations and tons of of billions of {dollars} price of products. However different tariff threats by no means materialized, and it is unclear what number of of his new threats he’ll observe by way of on.
On Tuesday, the president-elect additionally repeated his menace to impose “very critical tariffs” on Mexico and Canada, complained concerning the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada and the European Union and floated the concept of renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of the Americas.”
