Greenland has delivered a blunt rebuke to U.S. President Donald Trump after he declared that America “needs” the Arctic island and warned it could be taken “the easy way or the hard way.”
In a joint statement, Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and the island’s political leaders rejected Trump’s remarks, stressing their desire for self-determination. “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” the statement said.
The response followed Trump’s comments on Friday in which he claimed he was “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not,” describing the strategically located territory as a U.S. “national security priority.”
Nielsen pushed back strongly, saying Greenland’s future could only be decided by its own people. “Greenland’s future must be decided by the Greenlandic people,” he said, adding that foreign pressure was unacceptable.
“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasise once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” Nielsen said. “No other country can meddle in this. We must decide our country’s future ourselves — without pressure, without procrastination, and without interference.”
Trump has repeatedly argued that U.S. control of Greenland is necessary to prevent rival powers such as Russia or China from gaining influence in the Arctic. He warned that if a deal could not be reached peacefully, Washington might pursue other options.
Greenland remains an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, with growing calls for independence and firm resistance to external control.
