NUUK, Greenland (AP) — Greenland’s prime minister has a message for President Donald Trump: “Greenland is ours.”
Múte Bourup Egede made the statement on Facebook Wednesday, just hours after Trump declared in his speech to a joint session of Congress that he intends to gain control of Greenland “one way or the other.”
“Kalaallit Nunaat is ours,” Egede said in the post, using the Greenlandic name for his country.
“We don’t want to be Americans, nor Danes; We are Kalaallit. The Americans and their leader must understand that. We are not for sale and cannot simply be taken. Our future will be decided by us in Greenland,” he said. The post ended with a clenched fist emoji and a Greenlandic flag.
On the streets of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, where the temperature was 4 degrees blow zero (minus 20 Celsius) at midday Wednesday and the bright sunshine reflected blindingly off a layer of fresh-fallen snow, people are taking Trump’s designs on their country seriously.
Since taking office six weeks ago, Trump has repeatedly expressed his interest in Greenland, a huge mineral-rich island that sits along strategic sea lanes in the North Atlantic. Greenland, a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of about 56,000 people, lies off the northeastern coast of Canada, closer to Washington, D.C., than to Copenhagen.
Trump made a direct appeal to Greenlanders in his speech to Congress, just a week before the country’s voters cast their ballots in parliamentary elections.
“We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America,” Trump said.
“We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before,” he added.
But Trump’s message came with undertones of the great power politics that have marked the early days of his second administration. Since taking office, Trump has suggested moving Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip and turning it into a “Riviera of the Middle East;” announced his intention to regain control of the Panama Canal; and stopped arms deliveries to Ukraine after the country’s president was slow to endorse Washington’s roadmap for a peace deal with Russia.
Trump said his administration was “working with everybody involved to try to get” Greenland.
“We need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump said.
Lisa Aardestrup, an 18-year-old language student, wasn’t interested in Trump’s sales pitch as she stepped carefully off a bus and onto an icy street on her way to class Wednesday morning.
She’s concerned that becoming part of the United States would damage Greenland’s environment and the fishing industry, which accounts for about 90% of the country’s exports, while fueling inflation and higher taxes.
“We feel like it’s a bad idea, and we just more want to be like our little island that’s more independent than anything else,” Aardestrup said.
“Greenland is very independent,” she added.
Aardestrup is also worried about importing the school shootings, angry politics and homelessness that dominate the news from the U.S. She fears that would threaten Greenland’s culture, which she learned about from the stories her parents told her.
“There’s a lot of great people here,” she said. “Like, you create very lovely and longstanding friendships. And I think that’s what I love about Greenland so much.”
Greenlanders voted overwhelmingly in favor of self-government in a 2009 referendum that also established a pathway to independence whenever the people of the island support such a move. Under the terms of that referendum, Denmark remains responsible for Greenland’s defense and foreign affairs, with the local government controlling other matters.
Asked about Trump’s comments, Denmark’s foreign minister said he didn’t think Greenlanders wanted to separate from Denmark only to become “an integrated part of America.”
Lars Løkke Rasmussen said he believed Trump’s reference to respecting Greenlanders’ right to self-determination was the most important part of his speech.
“I’m very optimistic about what will be a Greenlandic decision about this,” he said during a trip to Finland. “They want to loosen their ties to Denmark. We’re working on that, to have a more equal relationship.”
Løkke added that it was important for next week’s elections to be free and fair “without any kind of international intervention.”
While opinion polls suggest most Greenlanders don’t want to become part of the U.S., not everyone agrees.
Yulao Sandkreen is thrilled with the notion that Trump might offer Greenlanders a chance to be part of the United States.
Standing outside a supermarket with a coffee and cigarette in hand, Sandkreen, who had a relative who worked with the U.S. Coast Guard, focused on the advantages that could come with tighter bonds with the United States.
“We need McDonald’s,’’ he said. “We need everything.’’