EU leaders’ tough rebukes to Donald Trump in Davos must be followed by concrete action when they convene in Brussels on Thursday night. The US president’s attempt to strong-arm Greenland and Denmark, backed by explicit tariff threats against those who refuse to comply, is not bluster or improvisation. It is economic coercion, openly deployed to force political submission and territorial concessions. The danger lies in the demand itself, but also in how Europe responds.

The EU has reached a moment of truth. If it cannot defend one of its member states whose most basic interests are under direct threat, then the EU is weakened as a geopolitical actor and emptied of purpose.

For too long, European leaders have clung to a comforting but false belief that the EU cannot use its economic power against the US, because Europe and Ukraine depend on Washington for security. This argument is wrong. Moreover, it is strategically corrosive. In a world of open coercion, appeasement and restraint do not buy stability. They invite further pressure.

Trade conflicts, like coercive bargaining and military deterrence, are shaped in large part by escalation dominance – the ability to convince the other side that you are more willing and more capable of sustaining pressure. That dominance does not rest on size and leverage alone, but on unity and determination. On both counts, Europe has recently failed itself.

The clearest example came last April, when the US imposed its “liberation day” tariffs. At that point, the EU had leverage. Acting forcefully and in parallel with China, it could have delivered a decisive one-two blow that Washington would have struggled to absorb politically and economically. Instead, Europe hesitated, split internally and retreated into caution. The result was the disastrous Turnberry deal brokered by Ursula von der Leyen last July – an economic capitulation that mistook temporary calm for stability and partnership.

As many of us warned it would, that deal has now collapsed under the weight of reality. Appeasement in today’s dog-eat-dog world does not moderate behaviour, it rewards it. Trump’s return with even more explicit demands is not an aberration. It is the logical consequence of Europe signalling that it folds rather than standing up for itself.

Hesitation and ambiguity do not stabilise a coercive system. They turn into vulnerabilities to be exploited by those willing to push harder. Europe now finds itself with its back against the wall – and paradoxically, that is where its strength lies.

The US has leverage over Europe, but the reverse is also true. The question is not whether both sides can hurt each other; it is who has the greater will to endure and to escalate. As Europeans have most to lose, they also have the strongest imperative and the means to win this. For Europe, the stakes are existential: a union that cannot defend itself economically cannot hope to shape its security environment either.

Europeans must at last understand that they cannot “buy” defence security from the US by staying quiet and rolling over when Washington makes unacceptable demands. Folding to Trump does not protect Kyiv. It weakens the case for Ukraine’s defence, signals vulnerability to Moscow, multiplies threats on Europe and further unravels the international order.

Europe’s response must therefore be vigorous and comprehensive – politically, diplomatically, militarily and economically.

In addition to shoring up a military presence in Greenland through a Nato-led operation, or if necessary a coalition of the willing, Denmark would be justified in invoking Nato’s article 4 to force a discussion about the future of the alliance. That discussion must address the long-overdue need for Nato operational command and control arrangements in scenarios where the US chooses not to participate.

In parallel, when EU leaders meet for their extraordinary European Council on Thursday night, they must issue an unequivocal rejection of Trump’s demands and set out a clear frame of action for forceful economic countermeasures.

The Turnberry trade deal was premised on restoring stability in transatlantic economic relations, not creating an open channel for further coercion. That premise has been shredded. The European parliament was today voting to suspend the agreement’s ratification as a warning to the US. The European Council should go further and declare it null and void.

In parallel, EU leaders should make clear to Washington that a retaliation package of tariffs on €93bn worth of US exports to the EU will snap back into force on 7 February, if Washington refuses to back down. These measures were suspended last year, not abandoned, and postponing them again would amount to a conscious act of restraint in the face of open coercion.

Finally, the EU should ready its never previously deployed anti-coercion instrument, or “trade bazooka”. Despite persistentmyths about implementing it, this need not take long at all. With coercion as blatant and public as now, the legal case is clearcut. With enough backing from EU governments under qualified majority voting, the instrument could be mobilised rapidly, giving Brussels a powerful retaliatory set of tools across services, digital platforms, procurement and investment.

This is not about seeking confrontation, rather it is about restoring credibility. Trump may believe he has played his hand from a position of strength. Even if Trump appears to have backed off from threatening to use military force, Europe must show that he has misjudged his opponent. The alternative is not peace or stability, but irrelevance and a Europe progressively picked apart by predators.

Georg Riekeles is the associate director of the European Policy Centre

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