Britain versus Trump as Prime Minister could ban King Charles from US tour

In a message posted online, Trump made clear that tariffs would start at 10 percent on February 1 and could rise to 25 percent by June, specifically targeting Britain, France, Germany and Denmark.

The intervention has alarmed NATO partners and stoked fears about the future of the alliance, eighty decades after its founding.

Simon Hoare, a senior Conservative MP, is among those calling for a tough response.

He said: “The civilized world can no longer deal with Trump. He is a gangster pirate.”

The minister also urged fellow MPs to reconsider the optics of rolling out royal pageantry while allies are under threat.

The Minister of Culture, Lisa Nandy, on behalf of the government, underlined the British position on Greenland’s sovereignty.

“We believe it is wrong, we believe it is very useless,” she said in an interview on the BBC, refusing to be drawn on whether the king’s visit should go ahead, instead pointing to the “depth” of the transatlantic relationship.

Economists have warned that new US tariffs could push Britain back into recession, while senior European parliamentarians have threatened to freeze EU-US trade talks in retaliation.

The prospect of a new global trade war has returned to the fore as markets weigh Trump’s rhetoric against his track record of following through.

Starmer, who has invested political capital in maintaining workable ties with the White House, issued one of his strongest rebukes yet.

The Prime Minister said: “Our position on Greenland is very clear, it is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and its future is a matter for the Greenlanders and the Danes.”

He added: “Applying tariffs on allies in pursuit of the collective security of NATO allies is completely wrong. We will of course pursue this directly with the US government.”

French President Emmanuel Macron echoed the anger and promised coordination with European partners.

“No intimidation or threat will influence us, neither in Ukraine, nor in Greenland, nor anywhere in the world when we face such situations,” he said, adding that tariff threats were “unacceptable.”

Britain’s right-wing reform leader Nigel Farage took a softer tone. “We don’t always agree with the US government, and certainly not in this case. These tariffs will hurt us,” he said online.

His deputy Richard Tice said Trump’s concerns about China in the Arctic were understandable but misjudged.

“On this point the president is wrong,” he said.

Former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt dismissed the idea of ​​a US invasion of Greenland but warned of a tense standoff.

“Invading the sovereign territory of a NATO ally would mean the end of NATO,” he said, calling the moment “a bloody bad time.”

Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton described the tariff threat as uniquely reckless.

“Its consequences for the special relationship and the NATO alliance… are incalculable,” he said, as protests in Denmark and Nuuk swelled to cries of: “Greenland is not for sale.”