Reaction from China to Trump's decision to sanction Europe
On Monday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry reacted to US President Donald Trump's threat to impose sanctions on European countries that oppose the goal of controlling Greenland.
“International law based on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations is the basis of the existing international order and must be protected,” Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said at a press conference.
“We call on the US to stop using the so-called 'Chinese threat' as an excuse to obtain its own selfish interests,” Guo added.
Trump has repeatedly stated that the USA needs Greenland, claiming that China and Russia wants the resource-rich Arctic candidate for their own interests.
Trump, who further hardened his rhetoric, said on Saturday that he would impose a 10 percent tariff on goods from eight European countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland, until he agreed to support the rhetoric of buying Greenland, an autonomous Danish island.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said, "World peace is in danger! China and Russia want Greenland and there is nothing Denmark can do against it," he said.
Last week, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters in Washington that Trump's claims that the world's largest island was "besieged" by Russian and Chinese ships did not reflect the truth.
“It's not true that Chinese warships are everywhere,” Rasmussen said. "According to our intelligence, there has been no Chinese warship in Greenland for about a decade," he emphasized.