Greenland’s likely new prime minister on Wednesday rejected US President Donald Trump’s effort to take control of the island, saying Greenlanders must be allowed to decide their own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen’s Demokraatit, a pro-business party that favors a slow path to independence, won a surprise victory in Tuesday’s parliamentary election, outpacing the two left-leaning parties that formed the last government. With most Greenlanders opposing Trump’s overtures, the campaign focused more on issues like healthcare and education than on geopolitics.
But on Wednesday Nielsen was quick to push back against Trump, who last week told a joint session of Congress that the US needed Greenland to protect its own national security interests and he expected to get it "one way or the other."
"We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future," Nielsen, 33, told Britain’s Sky News. "And we want to build our own country by ourselves."
That didn't stop Trump from suggesting during a Thursday Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that Greenland’s election that it was "very good" for "us" and "the person who did the best is a very good person, as far as we’re concerned."
Moving toward independence from Denmark Greenland, a self-governing region of Denmark, has been on a path toward independence since at least 2009, when the government in Copenhagen recognized its right to self-determination under international law. Four of the five main parties in the election supported independence, though they disagreed on when and how to achieve it.
The island of 56,000 people, most from Indigenous Inuit backgrounds, has attracted international attention since Trump announced his designs on it soon after returning to the White House in January.
Trump is focused on Greenland because it straddles strategic air and sea routes in the North Atlantic and is home to the US’s Pituffik Space Base, which supports missile warning and space surveillance operations. Greenland also has large deposits of the rare-earth minerals needed to make everything from mobile phones to renewable energy technology.
Trump said during the meeting with Rutte that "Denmark’s very far away" from Greenland and questioned whether that country still had a right to claim the world's largest island as part of its kingdom.
"A boat landed there 200 years ago or something. And they say they have rights to it," Trump said. "I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually."
Trump said US control of Greenland could be important for national security reasons and even suggested NATO should be involved, but Rutte demurred. Trump nonetheless noted that the US already has a considerable military presence in Greenland and added, "Maybe you’ll see more and more soldiers going there. I don’t know."
Despite that, Trump’s overtures weren’t on the ballot.
The 31 men and women elected to parliament on Tuesday will have to set priorities for issues such as diversifying Greenland’s economy, building infrastructure and improving health care, as well as shaping the country’s strategy for countering the president’s America First agenda.
Demokraatit won 29.9% of the vote by campaigning to improve housing and educational standards while delaying independence until Greenland is self-sufficient. Four years ago, the party finished in fourth place with 9.1%.
Nuuk resident Anthon Nielsen said the party’s victory would be good for the country.
"Most politicians want Greenland to be independent," he said. "But this party who won, they don’t want to hurry things so everything must be done right."
Carina Ren, head of the Arctic program at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, said the results show that Greenlanders tried to ignore Trump and focus on issues that were important to them.
"The voters have been able to drag down all the drama, all the alarmist talk from the outside to say, ‘Well, this is about our everyday lives, our everyday concerns as citizens. Where are we going, how are we going to develop our society from the inside.’"
Now Demokraatit will have to turn its attention to forming a governing coalition.
Naleraq, the most aggressively pro-independence party, finished in second place, with 24.5% of the vote. It was followed by Inuit Ataqatigiit, which led the last government, at 21.4%.
"What approach to independence will win the day will ultimately depend on if Demokraatit decides to form a coalition government, and if so, with which party," said Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative.
An unexpected victory Nielsen appeared to be surprised by Demokraatit’s gains as the results came it, with photos showing him sporting a huge grin and applauding at a post-election party.
He later said Demokraatit would reach out to all the other parties to negotiate Greenland’s future political course.
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen congratulated Demokraatit and warned that Greenland’s new government would likely have to "deal with massive pressure" from Trump.
"It’s not the case that you can just take part of the Danish Realm," Danish broadcaster DR quoted him as saying. "The future of Greenland is based on what the Greenlandic people and government want."
Greenland Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede last month called early elections, saying the country needed to be united during a "serious time" unlike anything Greenland has ever experienced.
On Wednesday, after the results were known, Egede used a Facebook post to thank voters for turning out and said the parties were ready to turn to negotiations to form a government.
