President Donald Trump wanted it in 2019 during his first presidency, and now he wants it again. Greenland is not for sale, Mr. Trump.
Greenland has once again stated that it is not for sale, following a comment by US President-elect Donald Trump that he wanted to take control of the territory. “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland,” its prime minister said, the day after Trump repeated comments about the Arctic island that he first made several years ago.
In January, Donald Trump sent a message to Greenlanders on his social media platform, Truth Social, stating that it would benefit both the U.S. and Greenland if the Arctic island were to come under American ownership.
Trump further stated that he would not rule out using military or economic force to make Greenland part of the United States. This has sparked an emerging foreign policy crisis for Denmark concerning the world’s largest island, although Donald Trump is not the first US president to suggest buying Greenland. The idea was first mooted during the 1860s under the presidency of Andrew Johnson.
Shy and reserved Greenlanders suddenly found themselves in the international spotlight as Donald Trump Jr jetted into Nuuk to lunch with the homeless, ahead of his father’s inauguration.
Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, is home to a large US space facility and lies on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the US.
March’s election saw the largest international press pack ever descend on Greenland. Weeks later, Vice President JD Vance dropped in to the US Pituffik Space Base, home to an early warning missile radar system, to deliver a snarky lecture to Denmark about neglecting Greenland’s security. (The irony of the shrinking US military presence in Greenland was lost on him. The base has 150 military personnel, down from 10,000 during the Cold War.)
Miriam Cullen, an associate professor with the Centre for European, Comparative, and Constitutional Legal Studies at the University of Copenhagen, calls the idea of Denmark being able to sell Greenland absurd. She explains that it would clearly violate both the Greenland Self-Government Act and international law for Denmark to hand over Greenland to the U.S. in exchange for money.
“You cannot sell Greenland, where people live, work, and have self-government. The Self-Government Act makes it very clear that the people of Greenland must make any decision about Greenland’s independence,” Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen says. Whether Greenland remains part of Denmark or becomes independent is ultimately a decision for the people of Greenland.
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Related: The Svalbard Treaty of 1920 and International Conflicts
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Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Danish counterpart at a press conference in Beijing on May 13 that China fully respects Denmark’s sovereignty and territorial integrity on the Greenland issue.
Greenlanders also have the right to decide if they want to join another country, says Frederik Harhoff, professor emeritus at the University of Southern Denmark and an expert on the Danish Commonwealth. But first, they would need to separate from Denmark.
The United States already has something close to “full military sovereignty over Greenland”. This is in part thanks to the exploits of a rogue Danish envoy to Washington during World War II (depicted in the 2020 film The Good Traitor).
Greenland is not for Sale, Mr. Trump, Tor Kjolberg reporting.
Feature image (top) © Photo: Christoph Strässler, CC2.0, President photo White House.