Polymarket doesn’t buy Trump’s “greenland tariffs”

The Polymarket market asking whether all of Trump’s “Greenland tariffs” will take effect by Feb. 1 is priced at just 17%. And the odds that Trump and Greenland will sign a deal by March 31 are only 30%, according to another Polymarket contract tracking that outcome.

So where does the skepticism come from? On prediction markets, emotions fade fast, but endings stick. In recent years, tariff threats have often worked as a pressure tool in negotiations: they sound harsh, they move prices, and then they get softened, delayed, or stuffed with so many carve-outs that the real impact ends up close to zero.

Then there’s the plain bureaucracy of getting measures like this live: paperwork, deadlines, coordination, retaliation risk, and the prospect of counterstrikes. All of that makes an all-out tariff war less likely than it feels in the moment. It can also turn into the kind of empty saber-rattling markets have heard before, like talk of 200% duties on French champagne.

That’s why Wall Street keeps repeating a simple rule: don’t believe a threat until it shows up on paper. After last year’s episode that traders nicknamed “Liberation Day,” plenty of investors got burned. Big tariff talk slammed prices, and then a large share of the measures was put on pause. That’s how the TACO trade stuck: “Trump Always Chickens Out,” meaning he can scare markets, but ultimately backs down.

In other words, the geopolitical tension that hit crypto, triggered ETF outflows, and sent gold through the roof isn’t being taken at face value on prediction markets. In Polymarket’s question about which countries could see tariffs kick in by Feb. 1, Denmark leads, but even there the odds sit around 37% and, judging by the chart, aren’t climbing. France and Norway follow with even lower probabilities.

Still, analysts warn that too much confidence in TACO can backfire. Lately, even seasoned political hands aren’t eager to bet they can reliably predict what Trump will do next. If investors dismiss the threats early and keep stress from showing up in prices, the White House gets more room to make real moves. And then markets won’t be trading expectations. They’ll be trading consequences.