President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened tariffs on many international locations for many different reasons.
On Monday, he discovered a brand new function for his favourite financial software. Mr. Trump mentioned 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 into a part of the US.
“They need to give it up, as a result of we’d like it for nationwide safety,” Mr. Trump mentioned of Greenland.
Denmark, which has a smaller inhabitants than New York Metropolis, will not be an enormous buying and selling companion for the US. The nation — a U.S. ally and a NATO member — despatched the US greater than $11 billion worth of goods in 2023, only a tiny slice of greater than $3 trillion of imports. America, in flip, sends Denmark greater than $5 billion in items, together with industrial equipment, computer systems, plane and scientific devices.
However regardless of its small measurement, Denmark, which handles Greenland’s international and safety affairs, is house to some merchandise which can be very well-loved in America, items that would turn into dearer if Mr. Trump follows by way of with heavy tariffs. In keeping with the Observatory of Economic Complexity, a commerce information platform, roughly half of Denmark’s current exports to the US are packaged medicines, insulin, vaccines and antibiotics.
That’s 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 necessary to the Danish financial system — it has recently accounted for half of Denmark’s personal sector job progress and all the nation’s financial progress — that some have branded Denmark a “pharmastate.”
Novo Nordisk is increasing its U.S. production to satisfy the soaring demand for its GLP-1 weight loss products. The corporate doesn’t specify publicly how a lot of its merchandise are exported, however it produces medicine in Denmark and the US for the U.S. market.
A spokesperson for Novo Nordisk mentioned in an announcement that they had been following the scenario intently however wouldn’t touch upon hypotheticals and hypothesis.
Gilberto Garcia, the chief economist at Datawheel and a member of the Observatory of Financial Complexity staff, mentioned that Denmark’s exports of immunological merchandise, which incorporates medicine like Ozempic, have been “rising exponentially.”
Denmark can be the main provider to the US of listening to aids, he mentioned.
Past medicines, Denmark additionally sends the US medical devices, fish fillets, pig meat, coal tar oil, petroleum and baked items, amongst different merchandise, in keeping with the OEC.
And notably, for a lot of kids (and adults) Denmark is house to Lego Group, the world’s largest toymaker.
It’s not clear 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 the 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 firms which have international provide chains shuffling uncooked supplies and merchandise world wide, might see its enterprise disrupted by tariffs. Mr. Trump has threatened to place levies on merchandise coming into the US from Mexico, China and different international locations globally, along with Denmark.
Mr. Trump’s threats to say Greenland got here in a rambling information convention during which the president-elect additionally advised retaking the Panama Canal and making Canada an American state, all statements that riled international leaders.
Mr. Trump argued on Tuesday that U.S. possession of Greenland was a nationwide safety situation, given the paths charted by Russian and Chinese language ships.
“Greenland belongs to the individuals of Greenland,” Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede wrote on Facebook Tuesday. “Our future and struggle for independence is our enterprise.”
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the European Fee referred to as Mr. Trump’s feedback about seizing Greenland as “hypothetical.” When requested about tariff threats, the spokesman mentioned that the European Fee had been making ready for all potential implications of a Trump presidency on commerce in Europe.
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in Brussels on the Peterson Institute for Worldwide Economics, mentioned that few politicians in Europe take what Mr. Trump says actually.
“That is an outrageous demand,” Mr. Kirkegaard mentioned of Mr. Trump’s threats to take Greenland. “The one approach you possibly can logically consider it’s that by making this outrageous demand, Trump goes to get some concessions he in any other case wouldn’t have gotten.”
Mr. Kirkegaard mentioned that ought to Mr. Trump comply with by way of along with his menace to implement tariffs on Denmark, he might anticipate an E.U.-wide response. “This concept that he can stress Denmark as a single member state of the E.U., to supply coverage concession by threatening tariffs, goes to ask retaliation from all the E.U.”
Mr. Trump put tariffs into impact on quite a few international locations and a whole bunch of billions of {dollars} of products in his first time period. However different tariff threats by no means materialized, and it’s not clear what number of of his new threats he’ll comply with by way of on.
On Tuesday, the president-elect additionally reiterated a menace to place “very critical tariffs” on Mexico and Canada, complained concerning the U.S. commerce deficit with Canada and the European Union, and floated an thought to rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America.”
