Trump threatens 200 pc tariffs on French wine as Paris mocks Greenland obsession

US President Donald Trump has threatened 200 per cent tariffs on French wine and champagne after Paris signalled it would decline his invitation to join his self-styled 'Board of Peace', escalating the bizarre transatlantic row that has now roped in Greenland.

The president also disclosed, via Truth Social, a private message from French President Emmanuel Macron in which Macron queried Trump’s fixation on the Arctic territory, part of Denmark. Trump’s broadside against France came after Paris pointedly derided Washington, mocking US treasury secretary Scott Bessent’s attempt to justify Trump’s push on Greenland.

“I’ll put a 200 per cent tariff on his wines and champagnes. And he’ll join. But he doesn’t have to join,” Trump declared, referring to Macron.

The proposed US-led board was initially pitched as a mechanism to coordinate the reconstruction of war-ravaged Gaza, though the charter does not appear to restrict its remit to the occupied Palestinian territory.

Trump subsequently posted a private exchange with Macron, in which the French president told him that the two leaders “agree on the issues of Iran and Syria” but said he did not “understand” what Trump was “doing on Greenland?”

Macron offered to meet Trump and other G7 leaders on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, saying he could also invite Ukrainians, Danes, Syrians and Russians, and even proposed taking Trump out to dinner on Thursday.

The flare-up followed a report by AFP that France “does not intend to answer favourably” to Trump’s invitation to join the board. “The board’s charter goes beyond the sole framework of Gaza,” a source close to Macron was quoted as saying.

Paris then moved from coldness to open mockery, turning its sights on Bessent’s defence of Trump’s Greenland manoeuvre. In a post on X, the French ministry for Europe and foreign affairs parodied the logic behind Bessent’s warning about future Arctic risks, likening it to deliberately inflicting harm in order to avert hypothetical crises later.

“If there were a fire someday, firefighters would intervene — so better burn the house now,” the post read, followed by, “If a shark might attack someday, intervention would follow — so better eat the lifeguard now,” and, “If there were a crash someday, damage would occur — so better ram the car now.”

The French riposte came after Bessent insisted that the 79-year-old president was preoccupied with future threats from Russia in the Arctic. “Down the road, this fight for the Arctic is real... We would keep our NATO guarantees. And if there were an attack on Greenland from Russia, from some other area, we would get dragged in,” he said.

Trump’s tariff threat did little to soften French resistance. The 200 per cent duties on wine and champagne were described as “unacceptable” and “ineffective” by a source close to Macron, who told AFP that “tariff threats to influence our foreign policy are unacceptable and ineffective,” underscoring Paris’s intention to keep the ‘Board of Peace’ at arm’s length while continuing to lampoon Washington’s Greenland fixation.

With agency inputs