Greenland was plunged into a geopolitical storm
Ole Jørgen Hammeken was at sea far beyond the Arctic Circle when the Inuit elder found in the pocket of his sealskin coat a crumpled old business card that had weathered nearly a decade of blizzards and storms. It belonged to Donald Trump Jr.
The younger Trump met Hammeken in 2016 and hoped that the experienced polar explorer, who lives in Greenland, would take him hunting for musk oxen in the far north of the island with a bow and arrow. But then his father ran for the office of US President and the candidacy failed.
Now, almost a decade later, the Trumps were back Greenland.
Shortly afterwards, Trump Jr. made a surprise landing in the capital Nuuk this week for a five-hour visit Donald Trumpwho wants to become US president again, said he wanted to buy the island – which belongs to the Kingdom of Denmark – and did not rule out the use of military force to do so.
It has plunged the vast, ice-covered country, whose 57,000 people live in some of the coldest and most remote corners of the world, into a geopolitical storm. EU leaders struggled to respond to an apparent territorial threat from a NATO ally.
In Nuuk, where temperatures are below zero most of the year and daylight hours are short in winter, Trump’s comments worried many. Greenlanders, several Nuuk residents said, tended to shy away from conflict in everyday life and were shocked by Trump’s aggressive tone.
“It was scary for some,” Hammeken said.
Many people were offended, said Kuupik Kleist, a former prime minister of Greenland. They didn’t like that their home country was being discussed as a real estate deal.
“You don’t just go and buy a country or its people,” Kleist said.
But Hammeken believes there is a positive side to Trump’s interest in the island.
Many Greenlanders are familiar with the president-elect’s style and know not to take it literally, Hammeken said. They are glad that he has brought the question of Greenland’s future into the global spotlight.
“Now Denmark has to listen,” said Hammeken.
Greenland was colonized by Denmark in the 18th century and has long advocated for greater self-government. Although it is now an autonomous Danish territory and has decision-making power on most issues except foreign and security policy, all Greenlanders who spoke to the FT in Nuuk said they wanted more political control.
“No one here wants to be part of the U.S., but they want more influence over things,” said Bolette Nielsen, a mining consultant from the tiny cluster of towns and settlements on Greenland’s east coast.
At a cafe near Nuuk’s old colonial port district, where a statue of a Danish-Norwegian missionary towers over the fjord and is regularly doused with paint by protesters, Nielsen said Greenland’s biggest political fault line is between those who want more autonomy as part of Denmark want, and and those who feel that Greenland is capable of going completely alone.
Either way: “Trump triggered a lot,” said Nielsen. “Denmark needs to listen a lot more to Greenland. We’ve been crying out for this for so long.”
The reasons for the Greenlanders’ desire to throw off Danish rule were varied. Some described personal experiences of discrimination, while others spoke of inequalities in pensions and salaries between Greenlanders and Danes, or inequalities in the provision of services such as higher education and healthcare.
But most of all, people cited recent revelations that Danish doctors used contraceptive devices on thousands of Inuit women without their consent in the 1960s, an act that Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede has described as a form of “genocide.”
On Friday – while a news ticker in the center of Nuuk played Trump’s comments on a loop – Egede said at a press conference that the island did not want to be part of the USA or Denmark. It wanted independence.
Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen responded that this was “legitimate and understandable”.
Hammeken said the exchange showed that “the balance between Greenland and Denmark has shifted enormously in the last few days alone,” thanks to Trump.
However, many Greenlanders believe that the island’s economy is not strong enough to simply cut ties with Copenhagen and go it alone. This issue is expected to dominate the next election in the spring.
“When people talk about independence, I don’t fully understand what that means,” said John Hansen, a musician in Nuuk. Although he cares deeply about his local identity – Hansen has compiled a book of Greenlandic poems and songs – the artist said that supporters of independence have no plan.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, remains financially dependent on Denmark, with 53 percent of its budget in 2024 coming from a direct subsidy from Copenhagen. “How this will be replaced is a mystery to me,” said Kleist.
“At the moment we only live from the sea and a little from tourism,” he said. Fishing accounts for 90 percent of Greenland’s exports and the industry is the second largest employer after the state.
Nielsen said Greenland was “too small and too vulnerable” and needed to “strengthen other areas.”
One of these areas should be Miningsaid people from the Greenland business community.
Although many international companies have mining licenses and the island is rich in valuable rare earth minerals, few projects have come to fruition due to government regulations and the logistical challenges presented by the landscape.
Trump’s comments have boosted stock prices of some local mining projects in recent days, with one person in the industry describing a “gold rush” feeling in the air.
In the snow-covered port of Nuuk, where small fishing boats and trawlers cut a path through floating chunks of ice to reach the sea, fishermen laughed at the idea of
“In fishing, we are thinking about selling to America and not just Denmark,” Pavia Rasmussen said as he ate a breakfast of raw seal meat in a dockside clubhouse. “We believe this could lead to a better price for fish.”
More trade freedom could also lead to cheaper food imports from the United States, said Nils, another fisherman. “Food from Denmark is very expensive.”
Climate change is making the work of Greenland’s fishermen much more difficult, the men said. They already cope with turbulent weather and long winter nights. Now melting ice caps are affecting fish supplies, said Ulrich, manager of a trawler and fish processing plant.
These same climatic changes are opening Arctic waters to more shipping and therefore competition for natural resources. According to Ulrich, Greenland was in the middle of Trump’s “big game with Russia and China.”
Trump cited U.S. national security, where a large U.S. military base is located, as the main reason for his interest in Greenland.
Greenlanders hoping for independence said they realized the island was unable to provide for its own defense. However, they assumed that military support and trade agreements could come from many quarters.
“Greenland is at the stage where it wants to have options,” the former government official said, adding that politicians had “courted” many countries, including talks with Britain.
Trump Jr.’s visit to Nuuk this week lasted just a few hours but kept residents talking for days. Local media reported that some of the people seen at a meeting wearing “Make America Great Again” hats were attracted by the promise of free food at an expensive restaurant.
But even the trip’s local coordinator – Jørgen Boassen, a Greenlandic bricklayer and Maga fan who campaigned for Trump in the US election campaign – told the Norwegian magazine VG that Trump’s comments about wanting to buy Greenland were “with should be taken with caution”. Pinch of salt”.
It was about the message it sent.
“He came here to show Russia and China that Trump is here,” he said.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
