Donald Trump may have backed down on the Greenland issue, but he will not accept blackmail from European countries regarding American bonds. The US President spoke of “heavy retaliation” if countries from the “Old Continent” sell US Treasury securities or stocks. They cannot pressure Washington like this, Trump said from Davos in an interview he gave to Fox Business. Specifically, he told the television network: “If that happened, we would impose major retaliation and we hold all the cards.”
The US President has been disturbed, in turn, by the crisis that European markets experienced during the claims for acquiring Greenland, as well as the launch of threats toward recent allies.
Read: Guilfoyle: Trump-Europe tensions over Greenland don’t block energy agreements
The White House appears to be interested in bond purchases as well. In fact, there are reports highlighting the seriousness of the situation. Alecta reported on January 21 that it has already disposed of most of the American bonds it held, due to the “vulnerability” of the American economy. This is a major pension fund in Sweden, while Denmark’s equivalent, AkademikerPension, announced the day before that it sold all American bonds, considering that “the fiscal situation in the US is not healthy.” Additionally, another fund from the Scandinavian country, Pensionskasse (PBU), told TV channel TV2 that it is also selling US Treasury securities. European countries that are NATO members hold, all together, more than $2 trillion in US government bonds. The amount rises to $3 trillion if Canada is included, another favored target of Trump.
