ECB’s Nagel: US Tariffs Would Hurt the US More Than Anyone Else

21 January 2026

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel said on Wednesday that the US threat to impose tariffs over the issue of Greenland would hurt others but also significantly backfire on the US.

In an interview with German broadcaster ZDF on the margins of the World Economic Forum, Nagel, who heads the German Bundesbank, said, “We must not forget one thing: the greatest damage will be done by the United States to itself if it pursues this policy. And hopefully this will eventually become clear to the US administration as well.”

A worsening of the disagreement would risk posing a setback to the recovery of the German economy, he said.

While the World Economic Forum was a good occasion to engage in exchanges with the US, failure to resolve the dispute would force the adoption of countermeasures, he said.

“Cooperation is key, and this is also what I expect from transatlantic cooperation,” he said. “Cooperation is what we really need in a situation with so many uncertainties.”

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