Europe needs deterrence against America too

One of the most notable choices in 2025 was Europe’s decision to turn the other cheek.

In April, when the United States chose to impose its highest tariffs for a century on imports from the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc would have been perfectly justified in retaliating by imposing comparable taxes on imports from America. That, after all, is what China did and it thereby forced President Donald Trump to back down.

Instead, the EU, like the United Kingdom, chose to restrain itself to avoid a trade war and in the hope of maintaining American support for Ukraine. It is now clear, however, that next year Europe will have to change its approach and start copying China. It needs to punch back to deter an increasingly hostile America.

In the final days before Christmas, America took two anti-European actions which no ally or friend would ever do. First, Trump appointed a “special envoy” for Greenland, the Danish territory that he claims America “has to have” on so-called national security grounds. This is despite the governments both in Denmark and in Greenland having made it entirely clear that neither has any interest in the territory becoming part of the United States.

Normally the appointment of a special envoy, a kind of super-ambassador, would be done in consultation with the other countries involved at least if the purpose involved was a bilateral one rather than something general such as climate change or the Middle East peace process. Instead, Trump appointed Jeff Landry, the governor of Louisiana¹, as special envoy to Greenland without the simple courtesy of notifying Denmark or Greenland in advance, let alone consulting them.

The second act came on December 23when the US imposed sanctions, in the form of bans on travel to the United States, on three EU citizens and two British citizens, including the former EU commissioner Thierry Breton, claiming that their involvement in creating and supporting the EU’s Digital Services Act, which became law in 2022, represents an attempt to deprive Americans of their right to free speech.

Travel bans are usually imposed on terrorists or on spies from hostile nations, not on the private citizens of countries that have been allies for eight decades, citizens who are simply taking part in an open debate.

This follows America’s extraordinary imposition, in August, of sanctions against Judge Nicolas Guillou from France and Judge Kimberley Prost from Canada, both of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, for having taken part in the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants against Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The US has never been a signatory to the ICC but still feels entitled to challenge its decisions. The sanctions prevent Guillou and Prost from travelling to the United States but more importantly also prevent them from using any American-owned financial institutions, including the major payments firms such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express.

We could spend time debating the pros and cons of all three of these issues: whether the United States is right to covet Greenland; whether the Digital Services Act and Britain’s equivalent Online Safety Act are threats to free speech, either of Americans or of Europeans; whether the ICC was right to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, just as the court also has for President Vladimir Putin.

Yet the merits of these cases are really beside the point. The real issue is how European countries and the EU as a whole should react when its historic ally chooses to behave towards them as if they are enemies.

Turning the other cheek made some sense this year, given the importance of the Ukraine war for European security. But these actions, against the ICC in the summer and now against the government of Denmark and five EU and UK citizens, imply that the decision not to retaliate carried a high price. It encouraged the Trump administration to find new ways to bully Europe, using its undoubted power either to hurt us or to try to get what it wants.

Now European governments, whether separately or together as the EU, need to find ways to hit back. Otherwise the bullying will only get worse. We must hope that politicians and officials are using the Christmas and New Year holidays to draw up plans for how best to do so. The right areas in which to retaliate would be ones where Europe feels able to sustain a fight, if Trump decides to escalate the battle.

One immediate option would be for Denmark, Greenland and as many other EU member states as possible to impose a ban on Governor Landry from travelling to any of their countries. They can correctly say that there is nothing to be discussed with this special envoy: as the Cold War showed, if US national security were really dependent on Greenland then its fellow NATO member, Denmark, would be happy to consider the reopening of the many former American military bases that were there in that period under an agreement signed between the two countries in 1951.*

India set an excellent precedentfor this in 2009 when it responded to President Barack Obama’s appointment of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as special envoy for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir by making it clear that any attempt to address the Kashmir issue would be considered an unacceptable interference in India’s domestic affairs and Ambassador Holbrooke would be denied entry to India.

Another option would be to borrow the typical tit-for-tat methods of dealing with Russian and Chinese spies by imposing travel bans on five Americans. The EU and the UK would be perfectly entitled to forbid some of their most rabid American critics from visiting and stirring up trouble here.

We in the UK should not forget that Elon Musk has supported British extremist demonstrators and even wrote in 2024 on his X platform that “civil war is inevitable” in Britain. That counts as stronger grounds for a travel ban than any cited by the United States against Breton or the other four.

(I should disclose here that I chair the board of directors of one UK non-governmental organization whose CEO has been banned, the Global Disinformation Index, so in the view of some Americans I too am part of what they slander as “the Censorship Industrial Complex.” I am as proud of that label as I was of being called a “communist” by the late Silvio Berlusconi.)

There will be other, better ideas. Some will argue that we Europeans should not stoop to the same low, cowardly level as the Trump administration. It is true that we must maintain our high standards of civility. But we must also find ways to hit back. Let us not forget that last month these bullies openly declared their intention of interfering in our domestic politics. Deterrence is no longer just necessary to keep ourselves safe from Russia. It is needed to keep ourselves safe from America.

* An added, whimsical footnote: Since Trump is following the Russian and Chinese propaganda game of claiming “historical” grounds for his demands, perhaps France could demand to revisit the Louisiana Purchase, the transaction in 1803 under which Napoleon Bonaparte sold the young United States not just Governor Landry’s state but also the entire Mississippi River basin, doubling the land area under US sovereignty. I am sure something illegitimate can be found in the paperwork …

This article was first published on December 27 in Italian by La Stampa, with a slightly updated English original published on Bill Emmott’s Global View. It is republished with permission.