Christian Ulloriaq Jeppesen remembers how it all started.
In 2019, when Donald J. Trump took the first term as president, Mr. Trump floated the idea of America buying the island of Greenland. At the time, many people in Greenland (and in Denmark, the controlling European country) thought his suggestion was a joke.
“Everybody said, ‘Ha-ha, you can’t just buy land, they don’t mean it,'” said Mr. Jeppesen, a native Greenlander and radio producer, by phone. “Obviously it was the wrong way to take it. Look where we are today.”
Now Mr. Trump has doubled down on his insistence that the United States must take Greenland for security reasons. And that makes Greenlanders ask the same questions as everyone else, but with more urgency.
Is Mr. Trump just explodes again, floating a bogus merger plan that you probably know is simple?
Or are you serious?
Based on his words a few weeks ago, Mr. Trump seems completely serious. Don’t forget that the Danish leadership said that the land is not for sale, and its future must be decided by the local people.
“For the purpose of national security and liberty throughout the world, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Mr. Trump in late December in a social media post announcing his choice to be ambassador to Denmark. .
At a press conference on Tuesday, the president-elect took an even more surprising step. He refused to use military force to find Greenland. And on that same day Donald Trump Jr., suddenly appeared on the island.
The son of the president-elect arrived on Tuesday afternoon in the capital of Greenland, Nuuk, visited some places such as a statue of a Danish-Norwegian missionary from the 18th century and was hosted by a Danish Trump supporter. He said the reason for the trip was personal, not legal, but the president-elect wrote about his son and “various representatives” who were visiting him and said, “MAKE GREENLAND AND BE PAINFUL.”
“All of this is scary,” said Mr. Jeppesen.
At 836,000 square kilometers, Greenland is the largest island in the world, about a quarter the size of the United States. It elects two representatives to the Danish Parliament and 31 to its own, which oversees many aspects of the island’s government, although Denmark retains control in several policy areas, including defense and international affairs.
Its location and its shape make it attractive to Mr. Trump on several levels.
It is conveniently located at the top of the world, in eastern Canada near the Arctic Ocean, and is home to a major US military base. It is full of mineral resources such as cobalt, copper and nickel.
And as climate change melts the ice, it opens up new routes across the Arctic Ocean, which is becoming a hotly contested region for shipping, energy and other natural resources, and military maneuvers.
Greenland may also find itself in the middle of a transatlantic protest over its sovereignty. On Wednesday, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said that Europe will not allow the country to attack its borders – while adding that he did not expect the United States to attack Greenland.
The burst of attention falls on Greenland at an emotional time, when the local independence movement is growing. Many Greenlanders feel increasingly hostile towards Denmark, which has played a watchdog role for decades. For its size, Greenland has a small population and the majority of Greenland’s 56,000 inhabitants are Inuit, who are part of a group of people who live in Canada and Alaska.
The Greenlandic language is completely different from Danish. Many people follow a culture and beliefs that are very different from those of Western Europe. And, like Native peoples in the United States and elsewhere, they have been treated unequally for a long time.
Discontent among Greenlanders and Denmark grew two years ago with revelations about Danish doctors who fitted thousands of Indigenous women and girls with intrauterine contraceptive devices in the 1960s and 1970s, often without their knowledge.
Danish officials have repeatedly said that Greenland is not for sale, although they have emphasized their desire for warm relations with the United States. Last month, Denmark’s king jumped into the fray by suddenly changing the country’s coat of arms to the symbols of Greenland and the Faroe Islands (another area under Danish control) – a polar bear and a sheep.
In this debate about who he is, many people have been confused about the purpose of Mr.
“Is it just a distraction?” asked Ulrik Pram Gad, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. “Or risk-based diplomacy?”
According to the 2009 agreement that gave Greenland increased autonomy, the people of Greenland have the right to hold a referendum on independence. The reason it hasn’t happened yet, analysts say, is because Greenland is still heavily dependent on Denmark for many technical resources – including doctors, nurses and teachers – and half a billion dollars a year in funding.
Aaja Chemnitz, one of Greenland’s two representatives in the Danish Parliament, said he was concerned that Mr. In that, he said, “We risk being a football player in the game between Denmark and the US.”
Greenland benefits from Denmark’s welfare system, he said, and it would be worse off if it became part of the United States.
“I saw the American plan,” said Ms. Chemnitz, who lived in New York while working for the United Nations. “I know how dangerous equality can be.”
Mr. Jeppesen, a radio producer, said that Mr. Greenland is not just a part of the world. It is a nation, a story, a country of origin.
“There’s this great pride you get from being one of the 56,000,” Mr. Jeppesen. “Greenland is amazing, beautiful, the most beautiful country in the world.”
“And it is a country fighting for independence,” he added. “It’s not part of the building you can buy.”
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