Donald Trump received a humiliating rebuff to his ambitions to annex Greenland and make the island a part of the United States. The US President has ruffled political feathers in both Denmark and Greenland in recent weeks with his provocative comments about the Arctic territory.
Despite the outrage, Trump is showing no signs of beating a hasty retreat and doubled down on his rhetoric in an interview with the US media channel NBC on Saturday. He said the US would “100%” get Greenland and did not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the island. His remarks once again provoked a robust response from both Nuuk and Copenhagen, as tensions between Denmark and the US risk exploding.
Greenland’s new prime minister was the first to respond, letting the US President know in no uncertain terms what islanders thought of his plans.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a pithy six-word response when asked about Trump’s weekend comments: “The United States won’t get that.”
“We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future,” he added.
The 33-year-old politician was sworn in as the island’s youngest prime minister on Friday.
He called for political unity to combat external pressure in his first press conference as leader of the island.
“At a time when we as a people are under pressure, we must stand together,” he said.
Over the weekend, US Vice President JD Vance flew into Greenland to visit the US Pituffik military base. He once again took aim at Denmark, accusing Copenhagen of failing to invest in security and look after Greenlanders.
The Danish Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said his country was open to criticisms but did not appreciate the “tone” in which it was being delivered.
Timothy Snyder, a history professor at Yale, noted in his Substack column that the responsibility for a lack of security on Greenland lay squarely with the US government.
“Arctic security, an issue discovered by Trump and Vance very recently, was a preoccupation for decades during and after the cold war,” he wrote.
“There are fewer than 200 Americans at Pituffik now, where once there were 10,000; there is only that one US base on the island where once there were a dozen; but that is American policy, not Denmark’s fault.”
In a biting response to Vance’s claims that Greenlanders would be better off as part of the US, he added: “Danes have access to universal and essentially free healthcare; Americans spend a huge amount of money to be sick more often and to be treated worse when they are.
“Danes on average live four years longer than Americans. In Denmark, university education is free; the average balance owed by the tens of millions of Americans who hold student debt in the US is about $40,000.
“Danish parents share a year of paid parental leave. In the US, one parent might get 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Denmark has children’s story writer Hans Christian Andersen. The US has children’s story writer JD Vance.”