TARIFFYING!

Why Trump’s Bid to Take Greenland Would Cause an Ozempic War

Denmark has potent weapons if Trump turns his desire for Greenland into a trade war: it makes Ozempic and Legos.

Attention, kids and your overweight parents and grandparents: Your favorite toys and weight-loss drugs could be priced out of reach if Donald Trump is serious.

Denmark’s defiant message to the president that Greenland is not for sale is raising fears that the cost of some of America’s favorite products could shoot through the roof.

The Scandinavian island has a smaller population than New York City, but its imports to the United States include popular products like Lego and the weight-loss drugs, Ozempic and Wegovy.

The specter of Trump instituting jacked-up tariffs for Danish goods grew on Friday with Trump pledging punitive tariffs for Mexico, Canada, and China—and Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen becoming involved in a tough-talking exchange with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Appearing on Megyn Kelly’s Sirius XM show on Thursday, Rubio said the president was serious about his interest in acquiring Greenland from Denmark.

“This is not a joke,” he told Kelly. “This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land. This is in our national interest and it needs to be solved.”

Responding to Rubio’s remarks, Rasmussen said: “I would be more surprised if he had said it was a joke. We seriously mean—and this is also true in Greenland—that Greenland is not for sale.”

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Before moving into the White House, Trump warned he would “tariff Denmark at a very high level” if it rebuffed his demands to hand over Greenland. “They should give it up, because we need it for national security,” he said.

On Friday, the president followed through on his threats to punish countries he blamed for smuggling fentanyl into America, saying he would impose tariffs on Saturday of 25% on Mexico and Canada and 10% on China.

The thinking behind tariffs—a tax on products made abroad—is that people will buy cheaper home-grown goods as the foreign versions become more costly. But if there are no domestic alternatives, or if consumers prefer the exports, they just have to pay more.

Denmark exported over $11 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2023, with more than half of them medicines, insulin, vaccines, and antibiotics, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Novo Nordisk, the maker of Ozempic and Wegovy, the weight-loss drugs hugely popular in the States, is based in Denmark and is so influential the country has been nicknamed a “pharma-state.”

HISTORY LESSON

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Denmark is also a leading supplier of hearing aids and is home to Lego, the world’s largest toymaker.

The U.S. operates an airbase on Greenland under a treaty, but the North American island is an autonomous territory of Denmark, which is responsible for the defense and security of the 57,000 residents.

Rubio told Kelly the U.S. needed to protect shipping lanes in the Arctic and he was concerned about a possible Chinese build-up in the area.

When asked if Greenland would be in the U.S. hands in four years, he replied: “Obviously that’s the president’s priority and he has made that point ... We’re not in a position yet to discuss exactly how we’ll proceed tactically. What I think you can rest assured of is that four years from now, our interest in the Arctic will be more secure.”

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David GardnerChief National Correspondent

Mary Ann AkersWashington Bureau Chief

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