GERMAN Chancellor Friedrich Merz in a speech to supporters on Wednesday night (February 18) warned the United States against “high tariffs,” saying “we in Germany and Europe will respond with high tariffs of our own.” 

Merz told followers of his conservative CDU party to applause that if the U.S. “overdid it," Europeans would be "perfectly capable of defending ourselves.”

Merz did not give any figures. 

In mid-January, President Donald Trump vowed to implement a wave of increasing tariffs on European allies until the United States is allowed to buy Greenland in what was an escalating row over the future of Denmark's vast Arctic island.

Trump said at the time he would place increasing tariffs on goods from EU members Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, as well as non-EU states Norway and Britain.

Merz also said he would discuss future cooperation between Europe and the world's second-biggest when he travels to China next week.

"Foreign policy and economic policy belong together just as much as defence policy and domestic policy. We can no longer separate them," the German chancellor said.