After President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social calling “the ownership and control of Greenland” an “absolute necessity,” Greenland’s prime minister let him know in no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t be happening.
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Trump posted on his platform ‘Social Truth’ that “the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”
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Not long afterward, Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede said the following in a written comment that rebuked Trump’s suggestion:
“Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
Trump was harshly criticized.
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Greenland is an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, alongside the Faroe Islands, the only other autonomous territory within the Kingdom. Citizens of both Greenland and the Faroe Islands are full citizens of Denmark. As one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union, Greenland’s citizens are also recognized as EU citizens.
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The United States has long recognized Greenland’s strategic importance. In 1946, the U.S. even proposed purchasing Greenland from Denmark, offering $100 million in gold as part of the deal. Of course, that never panned out and the U.S. has no claim to Greenland in any way, shape, or form—regardless of what Trump might think.
Climate change and the melting of the Arctic ice has intensified interest in Greenland’s natural resources. The island could become the next mini.g frontier. For example, KoBold Metals -a joint venture partly backed by Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Michael Bloomberg- and operated by Bluejay Mining in the UK, has been drlling there for critical minerals since 2022.
The outgoing U.S. administration under President Joe Biden has been offering advice to Greenland officials to draft a mining investment law for some time, all aimed at prodding investment in Greenland at standards considered higher than Chinese-linked rivals.
Or that of Australia. In 2023, Greenland Minerals -which is a 100-percent subsidiary of an Australian mining company- initiated arbitration proceedings against the Governments of Greenland and Denmark for the right to mine in Greenland. The Australian company seeks to gain the right to mine in Greenland or USD 11.5bn in compensation (the sum is almost four times Greenland’s annual GDP).
Access to the Arctic (maybe a similar playbook than China’s pursuing with Russia?) may be a thing, too. Just a few weeks ago, for example, Greenland’s capital Nuuk opened an International Airport, enabling larger plane landings in the country for the first time in their history.