European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde says US threats over Greenland and tariffs are not how an ally acts, urging European unity in response.
DAVOS: European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said the United States is “behaving very strangely for allies”.
She made the remark in an interview with French radio station RTL at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday.
Lagarde was asked whether the US was an “ally” or “adversary” of the European Union.
Her comments come as US President Donald Trump steps up his campaign to take Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
“When you are allies under the North Atlantic Treaty, when you have been allies for decades and have been part of each other’s history, threatening to seize territory that is clearly not for sale, such as Greenland, and waving tariff restrictions, and various other restrictions on international trade, is not really behaving like an ally,” she said.
She said she would pay close attention to Trump’s speech later that day at the annual gathering.
Lagarde said his address would allow Europeans to determine their collective response.
“For me, what seems fundamental is unity and determination,” she added.
Speaking later on a panel, Lagarde also warned that further fracturing of the global economy could harm business.
She said this was especially true for major players in the artificial intelligence industry.
“If you ask the ‘big spenders’ in AI what they need, they will say access to data as large as possible, they will say scale,” she stated.
She warned this would be jeopardised by different privacy laws and protectionist barriers.
