Trump’s threat to take over Greenland confuses the island’s population

Christian Ulloriaq Jeppesen remembers how it all started.

In 2019, during Donald J. Trump’s first term as president, Mr. Trump the idea that the US buys the island of Greenland. At the time, most people in Greenland (and Denmark, the European country that controls it) thought his proposal was a joke.

“Everybody said, ‘Ha-ha, you can’t just buy a land, he doesn’t mean it,'” said Mr. Jeppesen, a native Greenlander and radio producer, by telephone. “Of course it was the wrong way to go about it. Look where we are today.”

Now Mr. Trump doubled down on his insistence that the US needs to annex Greenland for security reasons. And that makes the Greenlanders ask the same questions as everyone else, but with much more anxiety.

Is Mr. Trump just being bombastic again, floating a fanciful annexation plan that he may know is a stretch?

Or is he serious?

Based on his comments over the past few weeks, Mr. Trump completely serious. Never mind that Denmark’s leadership has said that the territory is not for sale and its future must be decided by the local population.

“In the interests of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote in late December in a posts on social media announces his election as ambassador to Denmark.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the newly elected president took an even more surprising turn: He refused to rule out using military force to get Greenland.

France and Germany take Mr. Trump seriously enough that they both statements made on Wednesday defends Greenland’s territorial integrity and warns against the threat of any military action.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany said the principle of the inviolability of borders applies to all countries, “whether it is a very small one or a very powerful one.” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said it was “obviously out of the question” to threaten another country’s “sovereign borders.”

“Do I think the USA will invade Greenland? The answer is no,” Mr. Barrett told France Inter radio. “Have we entered an era of the return of the rule of the fittest? The answer is yes.”

Another sign of Mr. Trump’s interest in Greenland came on Tuesday when his son Donald Trump Jr. suddenly appeared on the island.

The president-elect’s son landed in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, in the afternoon, visited some sights, including a statue of an 18th-century Danish-Norwegian missionary, and hosted a Danish Trump supporter. He said the reason for the trip was personal, not official, but the president-elect posted about his son and “various representatives” visited and said “MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN.”

“It’s all going to be scary,” said Mr. Jeppesen.

With its 836,000 square kilometers, Greenland is the world’s largest island, about a quarter of the size of the United States. It is a self-governing territory in Denmark and elects two representatives to Denmark’s Folketing and 31 to its own, which is responsible for most aspects of the island’s government. However, Denmark retains control over defence, security matters and elements of international affairs.

Its location and landscape make it attractive to Mr. Trump on several levels.

Greenland is strategically located at the top of the world, east of Canada along the Arctic Ocean, and is home to a large US military base. It is full of mineral resources such as cobalt, copper and nickel.

And as climate change melts the ice, it opens up new routes through the Arctic zone, which is becoming a hotly contested region for shipping, energy and other natural resources, as well as for military maneuvering.

The burst of attention falls at a sensitive time for Greenland. More Greenlanders yearn for independence, and many feel more and more resentful of Denmark, which has played a supervisory role for decades. Greenland has a small population for its size, and most of the 56,000 Greenlanders are Inuit, part of a group of peoples who also live in Canada and Alaska.

The Greenlandic language is completely different from Danish. Many people follow a culture and belief system that is completely different from those of Western Europe. And like indigenous peoples in the United States and elsewhere, they have been treated unequally for a long time.

Greenlanders’ dissatisfaction with Denmark was intensified two years ago after revelations emerged that Danish doctors in the 1960s and 1970s often administered intrauterine contraception to thousands of native women and girls. without their knowledge.

Danish officials have repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale, although they have emphasized their desire for a warm relationship with the United States and signaled their openness to dialogue. Last month, Denmark’s king jumped into the fray by changing the country’s coat of arms to more prominent symbols of Greenland and the Faroe Islands (another area under Denmark’s control) – a polar bear and a sheep.

In the midst of this debate about identity, many people are now wondering about Mr. Trump’s intentions.

“Is it just a distraction?” asked Ulrik Pram Gad, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. “Or is it threat-based diplomacy?”

Aviaaja Sandgren, a nurse who lives in the small town of Qaqortoq (all Greenlandic towns are small), does not want to be part of the United States.

“We would lose a lot of benefits,” she said when reached by phone Wednesday. “We have free education, educational grants, free healthcare and free medicine. Everything is free here in Greenland.”

“I know they don’t have that in the United States,” she said.

Denmark ruled Greenland as a colony from the 18th century until the middle of the 20th century and heavily suppressed the indigenous culture. During World War II, the United States set up bases in Greenland to keep it out of Nazi hands after Germany’s occupation of Denmark, and when the war ended, offered to buy the island from Denmark, which declined.

Greenland was incorporated into Denmark in 1953, where the Danes helped revise the economy, transport and education system. In 1979, Greenland gained limited autonomy over internal affairs and established its own parliament.

30 years later, Denmark expanded Greenland’s autonomy and below agreementdo Greenlanders have the right to hold a referendum on independence. The reason why it has not happened yet, analysts say, is that Greenland is still heavily dependent on Denmark for many professional services – including doctors, nurses and teachers – as well as half a billion dollars a year in subsidies.

Aaja Chemnitz, one of the two representatives from Greenland in the Folketing, said she was concerned that Mr. Trump may be trying to pump up Greenland’s independence movement to advance his own interests. “We risk becoming a pawn in a game between Denmark and the USA,” she said.

Greenland benefits from the Danish welfare system, she said, and it would be much worse if it became part of the United States.

“I’ve seen the American system,” Ms. Chemnitz, who lived in New York while working for the United Nations, said in a telephone interview. “I know how damaging it can be to equality.”

Mr. Jeppesen, the radio producer, said that Mr. Trump may be misinterpreting the independent nature of the Greenlanders. Greenland is not just a large part of the territory. It is a nation, a history, a homeland.

“There’s this enormous pride you get from being one of only 56,000,” said Mr. Jeppesen. “Greenland is amazing, it’s beautiful, it’s the most wonderful country in the world.”

“And it is a country fighting for independence,” he said. “Not a piece of property you can buy.”

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Berlin, Aurelien Breeden from Paris and Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin.