In Greenland, nobody is laughing at Trump’s annexation comments this time

Open this photo in gallery:

As he drove through the icy streets of Nuuk on Friday afternoon, Greenland’s former prime minister, Kuupik Kleist, nearly slid off the road while railing against U.S. president-elect Donald Trump.

Mr. Trump’s repeated suggestions that his country should buy the autonomous territory of Denmark, and the possibility that he might use military force to get what he wants, had left Mr. Kleist fuming.

“I’m offended,” he said as his hands gripped the wheel on a particularly treacherous bend. “In 2025 you don’t simply buy a country and the people. And being a colonized people, we don’t think that we should have a new colonizer.”

Mr. Kleist, who served as prime minister from 2009 to 2013, added that Mr. Trump was behaving much like Russian President Vladimir Putin. “You don’t talk to your allies like that, and especially not in a world where Putin reigns. And I tend to think that Putin and Mr. Trump are very much alike.”

People across this small capital city nestled between jagged snow-covered mountains seem genuinely baffled by Mr. Trump’s comments which have put Greenland in the global spotlight once again.

They thought this kind of talk from him had ended in 2019. That was during his first term as president when he said that acquiring Greenland was “essentially a real estate deal.” Back then his suggestion was largely laughed off and Mr. Trump was out of office in early 2021.

Now that he’s on the verge of taking office again, Mr. Trump has upped the ante by claiming that annexing Greenland is critical to U.S. economic interests and its national security. And to drive home the point, his son, Donald Trump Jr., made a quick stop in Nuuk this week to glad-hand with a few locals.

No one in Nuuk is laughing this time.

“He must be serious because his son came here and saw how things are in Greenland,” said Peri Fleischer, who works for Royal Greenland, a government-owned seafood company. Mr. Fleischer shrugged when asked if he thought Mr. Trump would actually be able to carry out his plan. “Who knows? Maybe?”

It’s hard to imagine that people living in Nuuk are desperate for any largesse from the United States. The city has been on an upswing for years and the population, currently around 20,000, has been growing steadily with many new arrivals coming from overseas. There’s a new school, new roads, new apartment towers and an expanded port that caters mainly to the fishing industry. A new airport opened last November and it will soon serve flights to New York, London and cities across Europe.

In Nuuk’s bustling downtown on Friday many people were already fed up with Mr. Trump’s pronouncements.

“We are not for sale,” Paana Frederiksen said sternly as she sat behind a table stacked with jewellery and cosmetics at the Nuuk Center shopping mall. “We have so much to offer the U.S., so I can understand why he is interested. But no. I don’t want to become an American.”

Sitting next to Ms. Frederiksen, Noasunrguaq Christensen nodded her head in agreement. “I think it’s disrespectful the way he talks about Greenland. You can’t buy people,” she said.

Greenland’s strategic location – neatly positioned between North America and Europe and covering much of the high Arctic – as well as its vast mineral wealth have made it a target of outsiders for centuries.

U.S. president Harry Truman offered to purchase Greenland for US$100-million in 1946 and in recent years China, the U.S. and the European Union have jockeyed over access to Greenland’s resources. The island also serves as a key listening post for the U.S. military, which has a large missile warning and surveillance base here.

The Danes have controlled Greenland since the early 1700s. And even though the territory has gained some powers of self-government, the local authority still relies on Copenhagen for nearly two-thirds of its annual budget.

Culturally and linguistically Greenlanders are far closer to Canada’s Inuit and many locals chafe under Danish rule. Sovereignty has been talked about for years here and while most doubt it will happen any time soon, there’s a sense that Mr. Trump has tapped into the unease.

“Many Greenlanders don’t like Danish people because they have treated us bad in some ways,” Ms. Frederiksen said. She knows several people who support Mr. Trump, not because they necessarily want Greenland to join the U.S. but as a way of showing their disdain for Denmark.

Greenland MP Aqqalu Jerimiassen, who leads the centre-right Atassut party, doesn’t take Mr. Trump too seriously. “It’s not the first time in history that the United States has wanted to take Greenland. So it’s just history repeating itself again,” he said sitting in his office in Greenland’s parliament called the Inatsisartut.

Mr. Jerimiassen supports Mr. Trump on many issues and he even attended a Republican celebration last November on U.S. election night. He has a photograph of that event on a shelf behind his desk and a small Trump key chain. But when it comes to acquiring Greenland, Mr. Jerimiassen says Mr. Trump is off base and unlikely to have much success.

“I’m not so scared, because first of all the United States is our ally, our biggest ally. How can an ally try to betray us so much, by invading its own ally? He will never do that,” he said. Even if Mr. Trump did take military action, Mr. Jerimiassen said the U.S. would be considered a pariah state, much like Russia, and the American people wouldn’t stand for that.

But Mr. Jerimiassen sees a silver lining in Mr. Trump’s outbursts. Greenland’s issues are finally getting noticed in Copenhagen.

“It’s a wake up call for the Danish parliament and the government,” he said with a smile. He’s been working for years on equal pay for police, prison guards and other public sector employees in Greenland who earn less than their Danish colleagues. Because of Mr. Trump, those issues and others are suddenly being talked about in Denmark.

“It’s great PR,” he said of Mr. Trump’s threats. “Free PR and it has put us on the map.”