The French Minister Delegate at the Ministry of the Armed Forces, Alice Ruffaut, said that US President Donald Trump's threats to impose new tariffs on European countries that oppose the annexation of Greenland by the United States constitute "a form of economic warfare", Agence France-Presse reported, quoted by BTA.
"We are entering a space of coercion by the United States. The United States is willing to pursue a policy through particularly violent economic retaliation. "It is a form of economic warfare," Ruffaut said in an interview with France 3 television.
She described the threats as "absurd" because, in her opinion, possible tariffs would "punish" allies who essentially want the same thing as the United States - a stronger commitment in the Arctic.
Ruffaut stressed that despite Trump's warnings, "Europe is not disarmed - neither diplomatically, nor economically, nor commercially."
If the American threats are realized, French President Emmanuel Macron intends to request the activation of the European Union's instrument against economic coercion, AFP notes.
"We have weapons, we have tools. We will see how we use them, but this must be done in a unified and consistent way," summarized Alice Ruffaut.