European Union is likely to unfreeze EU-US trade deal amid de-escalation of tensions with Washington.
The deal is up for ratification at the European Parliament after a breif pause due frictions between EU-US relations.
US President Donald Trump said he will 'not use force' to coerce Western allies to agree to US demands over Greenland.
The European Union is likely to unfreeze the EU–US trade deal and move towards ratifying the agreement after US President Donald Trump softened his stance on imposing tariffs against EU countries opposing his need to ‘own Greenland.
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said on Thursday that Trump’s reversal was sufficient to justify resuming the ratification process, Bloomberg reported. The European Parliament briefly suspended the trade deal, agreed in July, amid rising geopolitical tensions over Greenland’s autonomy.
The agreement requires approval by the European Parliament to fully enter into force and was due for consideration in the coming days. “This means we can continue our internal discussions on the EU–US trade deal, which had been paused,” Metsola was quoted as saying. “I’ll be taking it forward with my colleagues so that we can proceed.”
On Wednesday, Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament’s trade committee, said the United States was undermining the stability and predictability of EU–US trade relations by “threatening the territorial integrity and sovereignty of an EU member state” and by using tariffs as a coercive tool.
Lange added that, given heightened geopolitical tensions and trade policy uncertainty, the EU had “no alternative but to suspend work” on the trade deal.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Trump said the US would “not use force” in relation to the Greenland dispute, de-escalating tensions between Washington and its European allies.
Earlier, Trump had threatened to impose a 10% tariff from February 1 on eight European countries, including France, the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands, with a possible escalation to 25% if countries did not cooperate with US demands related to Greenland.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the US had “formed the framework of a future deal” concerning Greenland and the broader Arctic region, following what he described as a “productive meeting” with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1,” Trump said. He added that further discussions were ongoing and would be led by Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff.
