EU Suspends US Trade Deal as Greenland Dispute Escalates
Brussels calls Washington's bluff: The inside story of how a real estate ultimatum froze the transatlantic economy and put €93 billion in trade on the chopping block.
It turns out you cannot buy the world’s largest island by threatening your allies with a trade war. As of this morning, the "Turnberry Deal", the fragile transatlantic trade truce struck just last July, is officially on ice. The European Parliament has suspended all work on ratifying the agreement, a direct and blunt retaliation against President Trump’s recent ultimatum regarding the purchase of Greenland. Bernd Lange, chair of the Parliament’s trade committee, delivered the message with diplomatic clarity this morning, stating that business as usual is impossible while the territorial integrity of a member state is under active threat.
This suspension effectively kills the framework hammered out at Trump’s Scottish golf course in July 2025. The pact was already controversial in Brussels; it required the EU to slash duties on US industrial goods while Washington maintained a rigid 15% tariff wall. Despite the lopsided terms, European leaders had previously swallowed the bitter pill in hopes of buying peace and shielding their exporters from further volatility. That peace lasted exactly six months. The legislative machinery required to lower EU duties has now ground to a halt, meaning the reprieve on US tariffs is gone.

