LEGO could be among companies to suffer from Trump’s latest tariff threats

President-elect Donald Trump has named Denmark, the home of LEGO, as one of the latest countries that could face “very high” tariffs.

Ahead of his return to the White House, Mr Trump has recently added Denmark to the list of countries who might be levelled with tariffs “at a very high level,” following his demand for the country to “give up” its autonomous territory of Greenland.

“They should give it up, because we need it for national security,” the President-elect said of Greenland, as reported by the New York Times.

Although Denmark doesn’t have a wealth of trade with the US, LEGO products are chief among its major exports to the country and could therefore be affected by such tariffs. As well as Denmark potentially facing higher tariffs, much of the manufacture of LEGO sets sold in the US is completed in its Mexico facility. Mexico is another country that Mr Trump has threatened with increased tariffs.

The LEGO Group has plans for a US-based facility in Virginia that should open this year, although that wouldn’t negate the fact that it’s a Denmark-owned company. Certain tariffs could still affect LEGO products as a whole, if they go through.

Could this affect the price of LEGO sets for the average consumer? It’s possible – but probably not something to worry about too much just yet. Talking about tariffs is far from implementing them. The New York Times went on to report that a spokesman for the European Commission (EC) referred to Mr Trump’s comments about seizing Greenland as “hypothetical.” Nonetheless, the EC has prepared for various different tariff scenarios that could be faced by European countries when Mr Trump returns to the White House.

“[Annexing Greenland] is an outrageous demand,” Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow in Brussels at the Peterson Institute for International Economics told the New York Times. “The only way you can logically think of it is that by making this outrageous demand, Trump is going to get some concessions he otherwise wouldn’t have gotten.

“This idea that he can pressure Denmark as a single member state of the EU, to offer policy concession by threatening tariffs, is going to invite retaliation from all of the EU.”

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