“Denmark’s investments in US Treasuries, like Denmark itself, are irrelevant,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters in Davos on Wednesday.
THE “Sell America was in full swing on Tuesday after the president Donald Trump And European leaders escalated tensions Greenland. American stocks and bond prices fell, pushing up yields doping.
It comes like Trump’s threatens to impose 10% customs duties on eight European countries as part of its drive to capture Greenland’s frightened markets. The levies would take effect Feb. 1, Trump said, and would then increase to 25 percent.
However, European holdings of US Treasury bonds were considered a potential countermeasure.
Danish pension operator Academic pension announced Tuesday that it was selling $100 million worth of U.S. Treasury bonds. The decision was motivated by the “poor [U.S.] public finances,” said Anders Schelde, Head of Investments at AkademikerPension.
When Bessent was asked how concerned he was about European investors withdrawing from Treasuries, Bessent said at a press conference at the World Economic Forum: “Denmark’s investments in US Treasuries, like Denmark itself, are irrelevant.”
“It’s less than $100 million. They’ve been selling Treasuries for years, I’m not worried at all.”
Bessent added that the United States has seen “record foreign investment” in its Treasurys.
He suggested that the Selling Japanese bonds following the announcement of early elections in this island state, has “spread to other markets”.
“The idea that Europeans were going to sell U.S. assets came from a single analyst at Deutsche Bank,” Bessent said, which was then amplified by “the fake media.”
The January 18 memo stated that “the United States has a major weakness: it depends on others to pay its bills through large external deficits.” At the time, European countries held $8 trillion worth of U.S. bonds and stocks.
“In an environment where the geoeconomic stability of the Western alliance is existentially disrupted, it is unclear why the Europeans would be so willing to play this role,” said George Saravelos, global head of foreign exchange research at the German bank.
He added: “Danish pension funds were among the first to repatriate money and reduce their dollar exposure this time last year. With exposure to the dollar still very high in Europe, the developments of recent days could further encourage dollar rebalancing.
Bessent told reporters Wednesday that Deutsche Bank’s CEO called to say the German bank “does not stand by the analyst’s report.”
A Deutsche Bank spokesperson told CNBC that the company generally does not comment on “potential communications between the bank and government officials.”
“As a long-standing policy, Deutsche Bank Research is independent in its work, therefore the views expressed in individual research notes do not necessarily represent the views of the bank’s management,” the spokesperson said.
Europe should ‘sit and wait’ for Trump
The United States views Greenland as a national security issue as the Arctic warms and new trade routes emerge, paving the way for a possible power play between the United States, Russia and China. The Trump administration has said it wants to avoid this conflict.
“We ask our allies to understand that Greenland must be part of the United States,” Bessent told reporters.
Greenlandic are, however, “disconcerted” by Trump’s “devastating” attempt to annex Danish territory, his Minister of Affairs, Naaja Nathanielsen, told CNBC on Tuesday.
″[We have] We have always considered ourselves an ally of the United States and have tried to meet the needs of the United States over the years and we have done so happily,” Nathanielsen said. said via video call.
“It is very difficult for us to suddenly find ourselves in the middle of a storm that aims to acquire us as a product or property, not to mention the threats of military action and actual occupation of our country.”
The island’s politicians have said Greenland is open for business, but not for sale.
Bessent added that the United States purchased the U.S. Virgin Islands from Denmark during World War I because it “understood” the importance of the islands.
“President Trump has made it clear that we will not outsource our national security or our hemispheric security to other countries,” Bessent said. “Our partner, the United Kingdom, is letting us down with the base of Diego Garcia, which we have shared together for many, many years, and they want to give it to Mauritius. So President Trump is serious here.”
“As I said after Liberation Day last year, I would say to everyone: ‘take a deep breath, don’t have this reflexive anger that we saw and this bitterness.’ Why don’t they sit down and wait for President Trump to get here and listen to his arguments, because I think they’re going to be persuaded. »
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— CNBC’s Sam Meredith contributed to this report.