Name: How will Trump's tariff threats reshape the US-Europe relationship? | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-01-18T16:57:56.000Z
Duration: 39 min 46 s
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Laura, you're here when we didn't expect to be here.

Transition words & phrases

But that's good because it's a very busy news day.

We would never do that when we said I wouldn't be here, but something I was meant to be doing after the program has now not happened.

And that is why I'm here and delighted to be so.

It is a massive day to have everyone here.

So we've got you, we've got Henry, and we've enlisted a mystery political editor who we'll get to in a minute.

Donald Trump has threatened the UK with tariffs over Greenland.

Yes, not just the UK but other European allies, too, who had the temerity to send a small number of military personnel to Greenland this week.

They seem to think that might please the president because it would say, look, Europe's taking the security of that part of the world very seriously.

Donald Trump seems to have had a very different interpretation of what that really meant, which we will discuss on Sunday's newscast.

Hello, it's Laura actually here in the studio.

It's Henry in the studio in real life and our mystery guest.

Kate Ferguson from the sun on Sunday, political editor.

Think of all the rivals who wanted that job and you beat it.

One of the things we will need to get to is the the Trump whisperer, Keir Starmer, and how much the whisper, how good the whispering looks.

Yes, I think the whispering doesn't look that smart this morning.

But if you've been under a rock, let's just tell people what Donald Trump has actually threatened.

So he, in classic Trump style, posted on his own truth social platform yesterday that because of the UK and other European allies playing what he described as a dangerous.

He has threatened from 1 February that Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K. netherlands and Finland will be charged a 10% tariff on any and all goods being sent to the US and raising that tariff to 25% in June unless he is allowed to do the complete purchase of Greenland.

Henry, test of the special relationship just a little bit, I think.

I mean, not just because of the tariffs, though, obviously the tariff that Donald Trump is threatening to impose, particularly the 25% one, if that comes to pass in six months time, is a very big deal, especially because Sir Keir Starmer sees the great triumph of his approach to Donald Trump over the past year being the deal he secured to mitigate the impact of Donald Trump's global tariffs that he unleashed almost a year ago.

So it's a test of the special relationship economically, but it is also a massive test of the special relationship because Sir Keir Starmer, for the last couple of weeks, has drawn a line when it comes to Greenland, and he has said very clearly that the UK simply does not believe that the US's ambitions as regards Greenland should fly, that the future of Greenland is a matter for the people of Greenland and for the Kingdom of Denmark.

And this is Donald Trump saying quite clearly that he disagrees and that he is willing to take quite strong action against the UK unless the UK drops its objections.

It's a big threat and for many people, I think, quite a gobsmacking threat.

Yeah, I mean, it's a night, a nightmare thing to happen to this Labour government on a Saturday night.

I think it's, to say the least, is there's three.

There's three things politically I think are interesting.

Number one, I mean, if these tariffs go ahead, it's going to wipe billions off the economy.

Our economy, already growing so sluggish, will be on recession watch again.

Nightmare for Rachel Reeves, you know, could that even push us into recession?

The, you know, yes, we've got this big thing called the special relationship, But Keir Starmer's whole MO now is that he's meant to be Europe's Trump whisperer.

So if we don't get a carve out, where does that leave him?

And interestingly, we've seen this kind of civil war and labor bubble up again over the weekend, all this talk of leadership plots.

So if Keir Starmer isn't the Trump whisperer, then what is his MO as pm?

You wouldn't normally turn to the Culture Secretary, but she's a senior Labour figure, so how was she trying to triangulate?

Well, what was interesting is that Lisa Nandi did two things, is one, she did all the kinds of rhetorical things that you would expect.

She said, we want to negotiate, we've got a great relationship.

The whole point of having a good relationship is that you can negotiate and you can persuade and you can cajole and you can argue.

She also, I think, in the most strident terms we've seen in the last 24 hours, that this government has ever really said anything about the American administration.

They said Trump is completely wrong to do this.

And she said on several occasions, very firmly, that the government does not in any way, shape or form believe that they should back down over the position of Greenland, believe that Greenland and Denmark and other European allies should back down.

The question then of course comes, well, do you think Donald Trump's going to back down?

But she was very resolute and this is what she had to say.

We're working really hard to make sure that we're not in that situation.

I appreciate that it would be tempting to come on here and give you a range of things that the government will do, but actually the one thing that we won't do is compromise on our position, which is that the future of Greenland is a matter for the people of Greenland and the people of the Kingdom of Denmark.

That is the starting point for the conversation.

What happens next is a result of the conversations that we're going to be able to.

You will never allow Donald Trump to take Greenland if you can possibly help it.

Well, we would never allow any changes to be made to the future of Greenland without the consent of the people of Greenland and the people of the Kingdom of Denmark.

They have a right to decide how the future of their own country and we'll work with them to support them on that.

But it's right that we're absolutely crystal clear about it.

I mean, just to underline, Henry, how extraordinary this is, these countries are all formal allies who have very real deep historic links with each other in terms of helping each other's security situation, sharing intelligence, sharing military decision making structures, weaponry, all these kinds of things.

And here we have have America threatening NATO allies.

And I think the fairly even tone in which Lisa Nandi gave that answer perhaps slightly obscures what a huge moment this is.

I mean, this is such a profound rupture happening in plain sight between the UK and various other major European and NATO allies and the US between the US's traditional allies on the European continent in the world, frankly.

Now, what I think is interesting is that over the next few days, I think you will have people say, people who have long been critics of the relationship between the UK and the US and this notion, they would say delusion that it's special.

Who will say, look, Donald Trump is actually just reflecting reality here.

The power dynamics of these relationships are actually that the US does hold the cards, that NATO is nothing without the US getting what it wants out of it, that the US UK relationship is not special.

The UK actually is just a subservient partner to the us, which is willing to host various bases and so on, because the UK is a lesser country and less powerful.

Now, that is very much not Keir Starmer's view.

That is very much not the mainstream view of the Labour leadership, but it is a view of a part of Keir Starmer's parliamentary party and a part of Keir Starmer's electoral coalition.

And he has suppressed that tendency for a year.

But I think it's going to get harder, not least because he himself is going to have to criticize Donald Trump probably as soon as tomorrow.

Can we say where sun readers are on this?

We think of the sun as one of the barometers of public opinion, and you probably don't want to speak for all of them.

But what are some of the moving points, moving parts for sun readers this week?

I think in terms of this story, there'll be a few things that will worry my readers and should worry kind of everyone.

First of all, if you get involved in a kind of tariff war, if tariffs are slapped on us, that's going to push up, that's going to harm the economy.

And once the dust settles, it's going to push up prices.

Actually, I'm sorry, I'm interrupting, but that's a great piece for the sun tomorrow.

What would 10% look like in a supermarket?

So anything that pushes up costs, especially when we've just come out of like, really sluggish wage growth, a long period of inflation, that big cost of living squeeze, which is the perennial topic of political discussion domestically, that is a problem for not just my readers, your listeners, all voters, really, because everyone's feeling that squeeze in terms of these kind of slightly more political, grandiose ideas of the special relationship with or this place called Greenland, you know, up there somewhere.

Look, what I think my readers will think is that we need to.

There is a realism that you were talking about how America do hold a lot of the cards.

Europe have underinvested in our defense a long time.

So, you know, here comes along a president that's fed up and, yes, making very controversial noises and decisions.

But I think this will reinforce that argument for my readers that we need to be taking our own defence seriously and investing in it.

Kate was our guest on our program as well.

So it's lovely for me to have all hour of Kate's time.

Lord Simon MacDonald, who's the former permanent Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, said something from his perch which is very similar to Henry's briefing.

Mr. Trump wants Greenland, and the threat of tariffs is a mechanism to try to help him to achieve that objective.

It certainly grabbed everybody attention.

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How will Trump's tariff threats reshape the US-Europe relationship? | BBC News

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