The EU was weighing up retaliatory tariffs on American goods and even deploying its most serious economic sanctions against the US as European leaders lined up to criticise Donald Trump’s threat to levy new taxes on imports from eight nations who oppose his attempt to annex Greenland – which one minister called “blackmail”, writes The Guardian.

““Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral,” the leaders of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland said in a joint statement. “We are committed to upholding our sovereignty”.

The EU’s top diplomats met for crisis talks on Sunday and discussed reviving a plan to levy tariffs on EUR 93bn of US goods, which was suspended after last summer’s trade deal with Trump.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, called on fellow leaders to activate the EU’s powerful anti-coercion instrument – commonly known as the “big bazooka” – if Trump went ahead with his tariff threats, French media reported, citing his team. After the talks broke up, the head of the European Council António Costa announced an emergency EU summit, which is likely to take place on Thursday. The EU, he said, showed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion”. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said Trump’s tariffs would be a mistake, and the Dutch foreign minister, David van Weel, described the US president’s threats to allies as “blackmail”, as reaction from European leaders continued to pile up. The anti-coercion law, which has so far never been used, enables the EU to impose punitive economic measures on a country seeking to force a policy change.

Trump on Sunday doubled down on his threats against Greenland, claiming in a social media post that NATO had been telling Denmark for 20 years that it had to deal with the “Russian threat” to the territory and that it “unable to do anything about it”. He added: “Now it is time, and it will be done!!!”

According to diplomatic sources, the EU was also considering reactivating a package of counter-tariffs against EUR 93bn US goods, which were drawn up in response to Trump’s previous economic threats but suspended after the two sides struck a trade deal last summer. The measures would impose duties on US cars, industrial goods, food and drink. The ambassadors of the EU’s 27 member states were meeting on Sunday in an emergency session after Trump threatened tariffs on the six EU nations plus the UK and Norway. But the EU remains far from agreement on retaliatory measures against Trump. “At present, there is no question of deploying the ACI [anti-coercion instrument] or any other trade instrument against the US,” an EU diplomat said. The €93bn counter-tariffs are suspended until 6 February and several sources stressed the desire for dialogue with the US.

A second EU diplomat said the situation was seen as very serious: “There was a clear and broad understanding that Europe and the EU cannot start reneging on key principles in the international order, such as territorial integrity.” In a joint statement, those countries said their Danish-led military exercise Arctic Endurance was in a commitment to strengthening security “as a shared transatlantic interest” and “poses no threat to anyone”.

Trump had accused the countries, which have all deployed troops to Greenland in the last week, of playing “a very dangerous game” and said they would be subject to 10% tariffs from 1 February, increasing to 25% from 1 June”, reads the article.