On Friday, May 9, 2025 at 01:03:49 AM GMT+5, Chas Freeman via Salon <salon@listserve.com> wrote:
Trump’s Threats Push Greenlanders Closer to Denmark
Prospect of American annexation reinvigorates ties to Copenhagen, though independence aspirations persist
Well-wishers gathered in Nuuk, Greenland, to greet Denmark’s King Frederik X last month.
May 7, 2025 The Wall Street Journal
Key Points
President Trump’s talk about the U.S. assuming control of Greenland has led the island and its colonial power, Denmark, to reinvigorate ties.
Greenlanders fear U.S. annexation would lead to the loss of their culture, and the island’s new government has rebuffed Washington.
Greenland bears scars from its colonial past and seeks greater autonomy, but also relies on Danish aid, expertise and welfare system.
NUUK, Greenland—Kaj Sandgreen waited patiently in a sleek concert hall here last week, as hundreds of others lined the snow-blanketed street outside and cheered as King Frederik X of Denmark arrived.
“Unlike Trump, the king respects us,” the 63-year-old Sandgreen said minutes before shaking hands with the king, who was clad in olive cargo pants and a puffer jacket emblazoned with the red-white Greenlandic and Danish flags. “It’s so good for him to come here and show that he cares about Greenlanders at this chaotic time when we fear an invasion from the United States.”
President Trump has frequently said that he covets Greenland, a self-ruled part of the Danish kingdom, for its strategic position in the warming Arctic and largely untapped natural resources. In this pursuit, the White House had hoped to capitalize on the resentment that many Greenlanders feel about Denmark’s colonial legacy.
“Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vice President JD Vance said during his visit to a U.S. military base in northern Greenland in late March, as he reaffirmed the American claim on the island.
But for now, at least, this pressure from Washington has had an opposite effect on the 56,600 Greenlanders, most of whom are indigenous Inuit people who jealously guard their culture. In recent weeks, Greenland and Denmark have moved closer together as officials in Nuuk and Copenhagen sought to reinvigorate their relationship and to look with fresh eyes at outstanding problems.
“If the Americans ever come here, we would forget about the Greenlandic past and culture, and it would be sad if the big history of this country just disappears,” said Elias Walbohm, a 17-year-old high-school student, who also came to meet the king at the concert hall.
A poster displayed for sale at the venue illustrated a caricatured view of life in Greenland under American rule. It showed a brand-new Trump Tower in the capital, Nuuk, with gunmen in red MAGA hats riding Teslas around town. The local Greenlanders were pictured behind barbed wire in a reservation, with tourists charged $200 to visit them.
Trump, who has declined to rule out taking Greenland by force, has said that the U.S. would care for and cherish the island’s people. But few here buy Trump’s reassurances, especially as his administration has ordered the U.S. intelligence community to step up spying on Greenland.
The island’s new government should focus, together with Denmark, on ensuring that it isn’t overthrown by Washington, said Pipaluk Lynge, the new head of the Greenland parliament’s foreign-affairs committee.
“We know it’s not about the people, it’s never been about the people. It’s about our land, our resources, our oil, our minerals. Trump sees us as real estate that you can buy, and we are really offended by that,” she said. “The relationship with Denmark will always be complicated because they were the colonial nation, but we can’t get through this without them.”
Danish lawmaker Rasmus Jarlov said that, as a first step, the American consulate in Nuuk, opened in 2020, must be closed down. “I cannot imagine that the Americans would allow foreign agents in the U.S. if they had an openly declared agenda of undermining the United States,” he said. “It’s clear that the Americans will be working on splitting Greenland and Denmark apart and discrediting our presence in Greenland, which would then allow the Americans to take over.”
The new Greenland government, elected in March and consisting of parties that won 74% of the vote, has refused Washington’s entreaties. Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, traveled to Copenhagen last month. He flew back home with Frederik—a highly choreographed visit that aimed to symbolize the closing of ranks.
As the king and Nielsen sailed amid turquoise icebergs in the Nuuk fjord system last week, a Danish Navy offshore patrol ship passed by, showcasing Denmark’s growing military commitment to the island.
“The main message from Greenland to the U.S. administration is that you can’t buy your way into Greenland,” said Aaja Chemnitz, one of two lawmakers representing the island in the Danish parliament in Copenhagen.
The
new American interest in Greenland, while alarming to many locals,
means that the islanders have gained more leverage over Copenhagen as
they negotiate the territory’s future.
GREENLAND
Note: Population as of Jan. 1, 2024.
Sources: Statbank Greenland (population); QGreenland (airports)
Emma Brown/WSJ
“We have good cards on our hands now in Greenland, and we have to play them well as we’re thinking about our next move—in cooperation with Denmark, especially, and with the other Nordic countries,” said Justus Hansen, head of the Greenlandic parliament’s infrastructure committee.
Colonized by Denmark since the 18th century, Greenland received limited autonomy in 1979 and much more comprehensive self-rule in 2009, with a steadily expanding list of competencies. The Greenlandic dialect of Inuit has become the official language, in wide use across the island. While Greenlanders possess full citizenship of Denmark, and therefore of the European Union, the island itself isn’t part of the EU.
Greenland’s colonial past, like that of other indigenous peoples in the Americas and the Arctic, contains dark pages—a legacy that has poisoned the relationship with Copenhagen. Among the most sensitive issues is the campaign by Danish authorities to control what they believed to be an excessive Inuit birthrate in the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly half of fertile-age Inuit women and girls were implanted at the time with contraceptive devices, often without their consent.
Decried by many Greenlandic politicians as genocide against the island’s indigenous people, the policy is estimated to have resulted in preventing tens of thousands of Inuit births. Danish authorities at the time also removed from their homes several hundred Greenlandic children, re-educating many in ways that permanently alienated them from Inuit culture.
“We still carry the pain, it hasn’t gone away,” said Amarok Sorine Petersen, an Inuit rights activist and traditional dancer whose half-brother was taken away by Danish authorities. “We don’t like Denmark. We don’t like Danish politicians. It’s normal, that reaction. We’re not going to fall in love with the people who have mistreated you, who have stolen your things, who have stolen your soul.”
Denmark and Greenland are working on a joint investigation of the contraception scandal and the stolen children issues, with a report due this fall, while Greenland is carrying a separate probe of past human-rights violations.
The historical bitterness toward Denmark has helped propel support for the pro-independence Naleraq party, which has built ties to the Trump administration, while saying it opposes American annexation. The party received nearly 25% of the vote in the March elections.
“We are still colonized by the Danish,” said Pele Broberg, an outspoken businessman who heads the party. He dismissed Greenland’s autonomy as a sham and ridiculed the new government coalition for reaching out to Copenhagen: “Denmark can’t even protect Denmark, so how can it possibly protect us?”
In theory, all the main political parties in Greenland seek independence. Unlike Naleraq, however, those in government envisage a lengthy process that would likely end in maintaining some sort of connection with Denmark, its Nordic neighbors and the EU in general.
“For us it is a marathon, not a sprint,” said Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister of commerce, trade, mining and justice. “We have been working toward more and more independence throughout the decades, and we will continue to do that.”
Fishing and mining, the pillars of Greenland’s economy, are already overseen by the government in Nuuk. Greenland wants more say in defense and foreign affairs, and over time, it may take over other government functions, such as the justice system, Nathanielsen said.
Money is a limiting factor: Denmark currently pays some $600 million a year for the island’s needs. So is expertise: Greenland relies on thousands of Danish civil servants, engineers, doctors and other specialized workers to run the territory.
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The welfare system established by Denmark, with its free education and healthcare, has long become part of Greenland’s DNA. Subsidies ensure groceries cost the same anywhere on the island and help maintain remote Inuit settlements. The social net also keeps crime and homelessness relatively contained.
Many Greenlanders say they are proud of just how much they have already achieved on the path to self-rule. “If you look at the Arctic region, Greenland is the only place where the original people have survived and developed into a nation,” said Aqqaluk Lynge, a Nuuk-based poet and veteran politician. “We are resilient people, and we will never succumb to anyone.”
Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com
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Appeared in the May 8, 2025, print edition as 'U.S. Threats Push Greenlanders Closer to Denmark'.
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