The Communist Party of Sri Lanka yesterday (18) alleged that the US was terrorising countries with unfair tariffs to compel them to align with its bigot policies.

CPSL General Secretary Dr. G. Weerasinghe said so responding to The Island query regarding European countries being threatened with fresh tariffs over their opposition to proposed US take-over of autonomous Danish territory Greenland.

US President Donald Trump has declared a 10% tariff on goods from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland with effect from 1 February but could later rise to 25% – and would last until a deal was reached. Targeted countries have condemned the US move.

Dr. Weerasinghe pointed out that none of the above-mentioned countries found fault with the US imposing taxes on countries doing trade with Russia and Iran. Now that they, too, had been targeted with similar US tactics, the CP official said, underscoring the pivotal importance of the world taking a stand against Trump’s behaviour.

Referring to the coverage of the Greenland developments, Dr. Weerasinghe said that news agencies quoted UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer as having said that the move was “completely wrong”, while French President Emmanuel Macron called it “unacceptable.

Dr. Weerasinghe said that Sri Lanka, still struggling to cope up with the post-Aragalaya economic crisis was also the target of discriminating US tariff policy. The top CPSL spokesman said that the recent US declaration of an immediate 25% increase in tariff on imports from countries doing business with Iran revealed the prejudiced nature of the US strategy. “Iran is one of our trading partners as well as the US. Threat of US tariffs on smaller countries is nothing but terrorism,” Dr. Weerasinghe said, stressing the urgent need for the issue at hand to be taken up at the UN.

Responding to another query, Dr. Weerasinghe cited the US targeting India over the latter’s trade with Russia as a case in point. He was commenting on the recent reports on India’s Reliance Industries and state-owned refiners sharply cutting crude oil imports from Russia. The CPSL official said that the EU wouldn’t have even bothered to examine the legitimacy of US tariff action if they hadn’t been targeted by the same action.

Perhaps, those who now complain of US threats over the dispute regarding Greenland’s future owed the world an explanation, Dr. Weerasinghe said. The reportage of the abduction of Venezuela’s President and the first lady underscored that the US intervened because it couldn’t bear the Maduro administration doing trade with China and other countries considered hostile to them, Dr. Weerasinghe said.

The CPSL official said that the NPP couldn’t turn a blind eye to what was happening. Just praising the US wouldn’t do Sri Lanka any good, he said, adding that the Greenland development underscored that the US under Trump was not concerned about the well-being of any other country but pursued an utterly one-sided strategy.

The US dealings with the NPP government, particularly the defence MoU should be examined taking into consideration US tariffs imposed on Sri Lanka at the onset of the second Trump administration and ongoing talks with the US, Dr. Weerasinghe.

By Shamindra Ferdinando ✍️