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I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herul. European leaders are baffled as Trump digs his heels in over Greenland. The US President has threatened to impose tariffs on eight allies who remain opposed to his potential takeover of the Danish territory. A ten percent levy will kick in on February first, possibly rising to twenty five percent on June first, affecting Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and
the UK. Trump has said the import taxes will remain in place until such time a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland by the US. But what does the United States want with Greenland? And how soon will it be until New Zealand is swept up in the chaos? Today on the front page, why get the University International law professor Al Gillespie is with us today us through what could happen next? First off, our Trump has floated this idea about Greenland for years now,
but now is actually trying to make it happen. What's changed between now and then?
It's the second step back to begin with, because like the way Americans understand territory is different to most other nations, and so the ability to buy land from another country is something America did with Mexico, with France, with Spain, and even with Denmark. And so the country you see today is a conglomeration of at least four different deals, which made it in a much larger area than when
it began in seventeen seventy six. And so some what mister Trump is now saying is, well, we can add to it, and so he's trying to continue a tradition. The problem is is that in betweentieth century, the practice came up that you needed people to have self determination, but they would work out whether they wanted to be part of another country or not. And so it wasn't just about the sale, it was about the consent of
the people. And so mister Trump's dealing with an idea that came from the eighteenth century in the twenty first century, and he's discovering that the people of Denmark and the people of Greenland don't want to sell the territory to him.
Well, he's reportedly refused to roll out using force or some kind of annexation if Denmark and Greenland won't agree to any kind of deal or sale. Rather, as well, in legal terms, how serious is that threat and what international norms would it kind of violate?
The most basic principles, that is for each country to determine its own sovereignty and its own decisions about whether they want to join another country or another organization. But we're at a point with mister Trump where all of the international rules have been pushed to one side. Whether you're dealing with Venezuela or whether you're dealing with concerns over the larger disputes with China, you're seeing many things just what we want to assume were normal, no longer
standing up to protest the time. International law itself is questionable, and the problem is not now of law, it's one of politics. Because it's bad to bully anyone, it's worse to bully your friends. And right now he's bullying countries which you're actually on his.
Side, and in terms of its allies as well. He has promised a tariff his favorite word, he loves that word, on at least eight European countries, and starting February first and then upping it again in too twenty five percent later this year. If they don't comply, they've obviously met and holding a meeting all of the European leaders or envoys. What do you think those meet what would they be talking about.
The point of trying to apply economic pressure on another country to make it bend to your will is not something that should be done. You can imagine if China did this because they wanted an island in the Pacific, or Russia did it because they wanted further acquisitions in the Balkans or the Baltic and you can't behave like this. But the way it responds, the way it happens, is that the Europeans will now go back and say, do we have a counter tariff or do we have a
collective response against this action which is destabilizing Europe. And because for a long time most countries have tried to have a policy of silence with mister Trump, and the best defense has meant to say nothing and just try to minimize the results or minimize the negative impacts. But he keeps upping the ante and so you start out with a ten percent tariff and now you get another fifteen percent because you speak out against a potential annexation
of a friendly country. And so the hard part of the country is now is to work out whether they say anything or at what point they have to become a collective inspect.
To what are their options when they do speak together, because they are standing as one voice. It's not often that Europe speaks when with one voice. Is that the likes of Serkias Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Georgia Maloney all agreeing over something is quite something to see what are their options?
This is eight what their options are that they have countermeasures and so if mister Trump puts an additional fifteen percent on European goods going in for countries that support Denmark and Greenland, then the Europeans would then put a countermeasure on the American products coming in, and so we go into a deeper trayed war. But it's not all europe that are currently saying no to mister Trump. A
lot of other countries are sitting along the side. And then it's not just the European countries, it's also the countries like what do you do with Japan, what do you do with Australia and of course, what do you do with New Zealand? And Each country right now is scared of putting their head up in case they get a backhand from mister Trump, because just to say we disagree means that you could have an economic consequence that could mean people's jobs and livelihood to put at risk.
And what kind of position does that put New Zealand in Because we've always erred on the side of keeping your head down, right, well, we're.
Becoming masters right now keeping our head down, and so you could see a situation like the invasion of Venezuela and the adduction of the president and so like we make needs very bland to statement about the support for international law, but we don't say what international law it is. We don't say whether the act was legal or it wasn't legal. We don't say whether the Maduro had diplomatic community or don't. We just try very hard not to
offend mister Trump. And so right now the right thing to do is to say, you can't put economic pressure on the country if it doesn't want to sell itself to you. But we won't do that because we're scared of the repercussions if we speak out, and by the way.
I'm a fan of Denmark too, I have to tell you, and you know they've been very nice to me. I'm a big fan. But you know the fact that they had boat land there five hundred years ago doesn't mean that they own the land. Sure, we had lots of boats go there also, but we need that because if you take a look outside of Greenland right now, there are Russian destroyers, there are Chinese destroyers and bigger there
are Russian submarines all over the place. We're not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that's what they're going to do if we don't. So we're going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult one.
And I suppose on one hand you're kind of waiting until his term ends, but on the other hand, you know that he's trying to get everything done before his term ends and really make a name for himself and mark his place in history. Hey.
The good thing is that Denizeland relationship, like the rest of the world relationship with America, is bigger than mister Trump. And so we've gone through rocky periods before and hopefully post mister Trump, that will come back to a more stable regime or more stable pattern, but it may not. As mister Vance comes in, It's possible that you may
see a continuity of exactly the same approach. But the problem now is that you've got America not putting its pressure on countries which we have challenges with, but countries which are friends, countries which are allies. America can get all the defense arrangements that want with Greenland through NATO, and we can have good relationships with Denmark. It doesn't need to annex the country, and right now people aren't
even sure why they want to annex the country. You go in with one reason, you state it's about defense. It might be about security, it might be about minerals. But there's no good faith in international relations and it's destabilizing everything.
Well.
European politicians have said that Trump's treatment of long standing allies was just playing into Moscow and Beijing's hands. Do you agree?
You could not have a better playbook for destabilizing the West, because the only chance that the West has of being a cohesive force again against either China or against Russia is if it's united. But when the United States is threatening economic sanctions, and not even lawing out military, which is just crazy against people on its own side. You've got to wonder what dream we've woken up in, because it's like the enemy has become not the external, but
the internal. And this means that Europe in itself could break from nature. I don't think that will happen, but a lot of countries are now saying, well, who is the bigger threat right now? And can we rely on America which is not actually economically threatening Europeans the saying they don't want to sell something to the United States.
And what is the point of an international rules based order if you've got America going into Venezuela and kidnap against president.
The internationalalkspace order is upside down right now. The rivets that hold it together are all popping quite quickly, and it's important for countries like New Zealand to work out which way we go. And I would argue that we need to align ourselves more with the European values than and Australia in particular as well and traditional allies, because right now the United States is not representing the country with values that it's necessarily the same as what we believe in.
What do you think it'll take for Luxe and to step out. Of course, I mean, especially given it's an election year. I'm not holding it at my breath in terms of, you know, doing anything out of the ordinary when it comes to everything on the world stage, any.
Country which speaks out unilaterally without a collective behind it is a high risk. And you can look at what happened to Canada and you can see what's happening to Europe. And so what mister Luxem would require is all of the countries to speak out at the same time. Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe, the friends need to have one cohesive wots because as they remain fragmented, mister Trump will continued to bully his way through them one by one.
Well, the first thing I'd say is that you know, the decision for Greenlander is a decision for Greenlanders. It's a sovereign state and it's pretty clear that they want to be part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The second thing I'd say is that Tariff's is not the way forward in terms of you know, we don't want to see it downard spiral of tariffs and for tat Tariff it's just not acceptable. We want to see it healthy. It's the New Zealand's interests to see a healthy transatlantic
relationship in place. And actually we think through discussion and debate and dialogue. Actually, if the US has genuine concerns around Arctic security, we'll have those conversations. But you know, tariff is not the way forward. So it pretty clearly.
If we go back to the beginning a little bit, why does Trump want Greenland?
It's difficult to say. And part of the problem we've got now is that when you've got mister Trump doing certain things he does. He says one thing, but he does something else. So he goes into Venezuela and he's talking about the legal drugs trade ends up being about the acquisition of oil and the removal of someone he didn't like. I'm not a fan of Maduro, don't get me wrong, and it's right to replace him, but there's ways and means to do it. But the justification and
the result are not the same thing. So when it comes to Greenland, what he wants, it could be he wants access to the Arctic Circle, he wants control of the minerals that are there, or it could be for defense purposes, and building a security shield. It could be all three, But on the defense point, it's critical to note he already has those rights through NATO and under
existing arrangements. You don't need to annex or force the sale of the country to get greater security in defense for the United States, which would make many people suggest it's not about defense, it's actually something bigger that we can't yet see.
Well, if Trump does need the US to take over Greenland to counter Chinese and Russian intelligence and threatn the Arctic, what is stopping him from then looking at the Cook Islands or similar and then be like, oh, we need to count on to Chinese and Russian threats in the Pacific.
Now nothing is stopping him. In fact, it would be easier to take up parts of the Pacific where there's no alliance agreement like NATO and to say we need this because it's important to our security. But the risk here is not what mister Trump sees in the Pacific. It's what other countries seeing the Pacific. The risk is that China designed we need to take this country for our defense, or Russia says we need to take this country for our defense, and there's no international mechanism to
stop this force. It starts off economic and ends up being militarily where one country wrongfully takes another one, and so the risk is huge. But we're already seeing that in this lawless will, where countries act to what they think are their self interests, not with regards to collective norms.
Right. So down here in New Zealand and Australia to an extent as well, we might be looking at what Europe's doing and what's happening over Greenland and think, oh, that doesn't have too much to do with that literally on the other side of the world. But further down the line, if Greenland is Trump is successful in taking Greenland, then Russia and China are probably looking very closely and being like, oh, well we can he got away with it.
Yeah, that's right. And many people would argue that you're currently seeing that with Ukraine and also potentially with Taiwan, and that everyone who is not played by the rules get something that they want and be some kind of grand deal. And while the big players win, the smaller countries and the medium sized countries are at risk if the situation becomes very unstable in theory. In theory, it
should work. In reality, it's a dog's breakfast and it's very dangerous because you're waiting for someone to step on someone else's toe and then full conflict to break out.
If that were to happen, what kind of situation would that put us in? Because it's not as outlandish ideas as perhaps it sounds straight off the bat.
What we need to do is, in an ideal world, if the Europeans put countermeasures, economic countermeasures on mister Trump for his threats to annex Greenland, we should join the countermeasures. We should be willing to stand with Europe to say that this is wrong. But we're afraid to do that right now. It's too difficult to think about what would happen if NATO went to war with itself. I do not think that will happen. I think that the relationship
is stronger and deeper than what's happening. But mister Trump pushes things, and we've all seen it happen in every area, and what we think is settled one day the next day is upside down. I don't think military force will be used. I think economic pressure could escalate. The economic pressure will have implications for New Zealand. There will be
spill over from future and deeper trayed conflicts. But New Zealand has to work out whether we remain silent or whether we join the Europeans and say you can't do that.
Mister Trump, your role and is it likely given we are entering an election year and the keyword on everyone's agenda this year will be the economy. How much faith do you have in the current coalition government that they will stand up.
I don't think if it's not done collectively, I don't think the current coalition government will stand up. But you have to ask at what point do you stand up? At what point is this some egregious action when you say enough is enough? And it's in New Zealand's greater interest to say no and object to mister Trump than to continue this pattern.
Thanks for joining us OL.
You're welcome, Chelsea.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzidhrald dot co dot nz. The Front Page is hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels. Caine. Dickie is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor, and our executive producer is jane Ye. Follow the front page on the iheartapp or wherever you get your podcasts, and join us next time for another look beyond the headlines.