THE WHITE HOUSE in Washington seems far away as you look out at icebergs from the seaside town of Nuuk in Greenland, but Donald Trump’s sabre-rattling is never far from people’s lips, as I discovered on a visit there last month.
I travelled to Greenland in my capacity as co-chair of the European Green Party. Our delegation included Green and European Free Alliance MEPs from many European countries. We were there to show our support for Greenland and to hear first-hand from its people on the issues they face. In the course of our four-day trip, Greenlanders expressed concern about being caught up in a geo-political row.
They expressed hope that international attention would boost investment in the Greenlandic economy and services that people need to survive in a harsh northern climate.
Indigenous people around the Arctic connect regularly through the Inuit Circumpolar Council. They are wary of Trump’s advances, as they are familiar with the housing and health conditions that Inuit people face daily in Alaska.
Greenland is a massive island of over two million square kilometres in area, over 25 times the size of Ireland. If superimposed on a map of Europe, it would stretch from Stockholm in Sweden to Malta in the Mediterranean. Mostly covered in snow and ice, it is home to over 56,000 people, most of whom are Inuit who speak Greenlandic or Kalaallisut as their first language.
Nordic settlers arrived in the year 982 AD, but died out by the 1400s. Nuuk, a community of 20,000 residents, is the largest town and is located on the west coast. The temperature climbs above 0 °C degrees for just five months of the year.
Fishing is the main industry, and Denmark provides a significant block grant each year to sustain the region. Although it is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland was granted home rule in 1979, and six years later, Greenland left the European Economic Community.
The 1985 Greenland Self-Government Act devolved more powers to the region’s parliament, the Naalakkersuisut. However, last year, shortly after Trump’s election, an opinion poll found that 60% of Greenland’s population would vote in favour of re-joining the EU.
We had been briefed in advance by the Danish EU Ambassador and the Head of the Greenland Representation to the EU. We met government ministers and MPs, businesses and civil society. All were concerned at being caught in a row started by Donald Trump five years ago when he offered to buy the world’s largest island.
This year’s visits by Trump’s son Donald, and more recently, US Vice President JD Vance caused further controversy.
Donald Junior’s dispensing of red MAGA hats and a free lunch was not the best way to ingratiate himself locally and further angered many. The 1951 Greenland Defence Agreement allows the United States to keep its military base there, and expand if necessary, so recent US interest seems to be more related to mining deposits than military interests.
Currently, there are gold, anorthosite and ruby mines operating, but in harsh conditions. Deposits of rare earth minerals do exist, and in a warming world, the costs of their extraction may reduce. However, Greenland has ruled out oil and gas extraction as well as uranium mining, and Energy Minister Naaja Nathanielsen told us that the future for extractive industries is unclear, despite the issuing of many exploration licenses in recent years.
“Nature rules everything,” said the head of Greenland’s postal and telecommunications company, as he walked us up a rocky hill overlooking Nuuk to inspect a microwave communications link. As we avoided patches of ice, our boots sank deep in the April snow, it was easy to agree.
Toke Binzer is the CEO of Tussas Telecom, and they connect isolated communities using microwave links and underwater cables. He discussed the difficulties of maintaining infrastructure through long, harsh winters and retaining personnel. He also spoke of smart undersea cables that can detect underwater interference, but which could also be used to locate submarines and undersea craft in the ‘GIUK gap’, a naval choke point between Greenland, Iceland and Norway.
We also met Major General Søren Andersen, head of the Arctic Command based in Nuuk. He carries out search and rescue operations in an area that stretches to the North Pole, and his ships can cut through ice a metre thick. He oversees the Sirius Dog Sled Patrol; a designated unit of the Danish Special Forces Command.
It sends soldiers out for months at a time to patrol one of the coldest and most remote regions of the globe. Andersen has a good relationship with his US colleagues in the United States-operated Pituffik Space Base 1,500 kilometres to the North, and the previous weekend had flown with Colonel Susannah Meyers, its commander, to the North Pole. They flew through 24 time zones as they circled the pole before returning south. She has been removed from her post by Trump, allegedly because she distanced herself from US Vice President Vance’s criticism of Denmark.
The presence of up to 55 cruise ships on a given day in the seas under Andersen’s control can cause him to lose sleep. Similar concerns were echoed by the Hunters and Fishermen Association KNAPK and their chair, Ole Jørgen Davidsen, who notes that an increase in cruise ships disturbs the migration routes of narwhals and polar bears.
Currently, the Greenland economy is based on fish exports and benefits from significant financial support from Denmark and the European Union. We met the State-owned fishing company Royal Greenland, which catches large amounts of halibut, cod, and shrimp in arctic waters. The company owns processing factories in China and Poland. Fishing is the most important economic sector in Greenland, and we toured a super-trawler that can sort, cook, box and freeze tons of prawns every hour.
In another meeting, Christian Keldsen of the Greenland Business Association hoped that the recent lengthening of Nuuk’s runway would bring more tourists to the region and boost the economy.
Kaare Winther Hansen from the World Wildlife Association’s local office spoke of moves to protect the ‘Last Ice Area’. This is a region which includes parts of Northern Greenland, where in the years to come, sea ice may persist longest in the face of climate change, and that acts as a refuge for ice-dependent species. She also spoke of the increased threat from polar bears who are migrating into settlements as their old feeding grounds decline, and is advocating for their relocation, rather than shooting.
Denmark’s King Frederik travelled to Greenland just after we left, and was warmly received, in part due to his previous military service as a member of the Sirius Dog Patrol, and he knows his territory.
However, tensions from Denmark’s colonial past overshadow the relationship. Within living memory, residents in small settlements were moved into large flat blocks in the main towns, and this displacement casts a long shadow. As recently as the 1970s, Danish doctors inserted IUDs into Greenlandic Inuit women and girls without their consent, and investigations into this practice continue.
It had seemed that Greenland was moving towards greater independence, but American overtures under Trump’s presidency have led to Greenlanders seeking support from Denmark and the European Union.
Greenland is currently in the spotlight. It is stunningly beautiful, with strong, resilient people, but is increasingly under threat in a changing climate and in a turbulent political time. It may be forced into difficult decisions about its future in the months and years ahead.
