Donald Trump’s skier left Greenland and Denmark

When Donald Trump first proposed buying Greenland in 2019, Danish politicians dismissed him and the idea as a joke.

This time, the government in Copenhagen was more cautious after the US-president-elect renewed his interest in controlling the geopolitically crucial Arctic island.

Trump’s off-the-cuff policymaking has a way of unsettling even the closest allies, especially when his actions come close to being overwhelming. On Tuesday, his son Donald Jr. made a “personal visit”. GreenlandHe is supposed to admire the snowy beauty of the vast island, home to only 56,000 people.

The president’s latest proposal has left politicians in both Copenhagen and the Greenlandic capital Nuuk in a frenzy. How will they respond to what appears to be an increasingly tough game for the US, their primary security guarantor, as it battles Russia and China for influence in the Arctic?

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized Trump’s Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen called the proposal “absurd” in 2019 and said: “This must be an April Fool’s joke.” Trump immediately canceled a planned visit to the Nordic country.

Their speech on Tuesday was different. Frederiksen insisted on an autonomous Greenland, a Danish state;Not for saleHe said. But Denmark insists it wants to cooperate with the US. “We have a clear interest in the US playing a major role in that region, not, for example, Russia,” said Frederiksen, who remains responsible for Greenland’s foreign affairs and security policy.

That awkward attempt to avoid disappointment Trump Even before his second term, he was universally unpopular in Copenhagen. Pelle Dragstedt, a political spokesman for the far-left Enheadslisten, slammed Frederiksen for not calling out Trump’s “disrespectful and dangerously neocolonial” language.

“The answer from our prime minister is that Trump can do whatever he wants with regard to Greenland and Denmark.”

Trump himself seemed to understand this, when he told reporters on Tuesday that he would not be able to avoid military coercion or tariffs on NATO ally Denmark if they did not find Greenland.

Trump’s comments Touching a nerve In Denmark, precisely because Copenhagen has long been seen as undervaluing and even abusing Greenland. Experts say Denmark underestimated Greenland’s geopolitical importance, perhaps the most important Arctic land and potential source of large minerals as the ice melts.

Recent revelations that Greenlanders were forcibly sterilized in the 1960s have damaged relations with Denmark and fueled talk of breaking free from the “colonial era,” Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Igede said recently.

Frederiksen herself said on Tuesday that Greenland was moving closer to independence, even if it wanted to keep the Danish kingdom – including the autonomous Faroe Islands – together.

But Trump’s proposal is too far-fetched even for Greenland and requires something different balancing function Politicians in Nuuk.

Egede constantly emphasized that Greenland “will never be for sale”. There is little desire to change one colony for another on the island. But the prime minister and other Greenlandic politicians have stressed that the island is open for business and is keen to attract foreign, particularly American, investment.

Egde wants to break free from Copenhagen, he will use his New Year’s speech to intensify his talks on the issue before the elections in April. The biggest obstacle to that is Greenland’s economic dependence on Denmark and its annual economic subsidy of DKr3.9bn ($540mn) – about $10,000 in Greenland.

For all the attention to oil and mineral resources that could be unlocked by climate change in Greenland, existing projects have seen relatively little progress over the past decade. A Greenlandic businessman once said: “Potential is there, but it always seems to come from nowhere.

Opposition politicians accuse Igde of not doing much to promote freedom while in power, and some fear that Trump’s proposal will overshadow other issues in the upcoming election.

All of this may be to the liking of the US president-elect, as it balances traditional allies from Europe to Canada with a variety of marketing tactics. Greenland and Denmark are busy speculating what will be enough to buy Trump off.

But Egede, speaking on Tuesday, tried to explain that the future of one of the world’s most strategically important landmasses lies solely with Greenland’s population of 56,000.

“Our future and our struggle for freedom is our business. While others, including the Danes and Americans, have the right to their opinions, we must not let external pressures distract us from our path. The future is ours, and it is ours to shape,” he said. he said..