Could Europe use its financial muscle to strong-arm the US?
More or Less
BBC
4.6 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2026
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
Could European Nato members use their large holdings of US shares and bonds to put pressure on America? It’s a question that some in Europe found themselves asking as the geopolitical crisis over Greenland escalated and leaders desperately tried to think of ways to dissuade Donald Trump. It is true that trillions of dollars of American financial assets are held in Europe. But the devil, as ever, is in the detail. Tim Harford talks to Toby Nangle, a journalist with the Financial Times, to drill down into the numbers.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Nathan Gower Series Producer: Tom Colls Editor: Richard Vadon Programme Coordinator: Brenda Brown Sound Engineer: James Beard
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.8 | Hello, and thanks for downloading the more or less podcast, with a program that looks at the |
| 0:11.0 | numbers in the news, in life, and in global economics. |
| 0:14.6 | And I'm Tim Harford. |
| 0:19.7 | Late in January, US President Donald Trump sent shockwaves to European countries |
| 0:26.1 | as he appeared to seriously consider taking over the island of Greenland, |
| 0:31.6 | which is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO ally. |
| 0:37.1 | At the height of the crisis, many in Europe were trying |
| 0:40.1 | to think of ways to dissuade President Trump. If a military response was unthinkable and diplomacy |
| 0:46.4 | wasn't working, perhaps the answer might be financial pressure. Suddenly, people started throwing |
| 0:53.1 | around some vague plans involving huge numbers, |
| 0:57.1 | claims about trillions of dollars' worth of US financial assets owned by Europe. |
| 1:02.4 | The idea was that Europe could threaten to sell those assets, inflicting such pain on the |
| 1:08.0 | US economy that Trump would change course. |
| 1:11.4 | European countries held trillions of stocks and bonds from the U.S. |
| 1:15.9 | Do you worry that they would start selling those in retaliation? |
| 1:18.9 | If they do, they do. |
| 1:20.1 | But, you know, if that would happen, there would be a big retaliation on our part, |
| 1:24.3 | and we have all the cards. |
| 1:26.6 | President Trump appears to have changed course anyway, but whatever, it all raises a fascinating |
| 1:31.7 | set of questions. |
| 1:33.6 | So, how many trillions are there and could Europe really use them for leverage? |
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