CARL BILDT
In 2019, when Donald Trump first proclaimed that the United States should “buy Greenland,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen rightly dismissed the idea as “absurd.” Greenland is not for sale, she noted. While Denmark manages the territory’s foreign and security policies, Greenland sees to its own domestic affairs.
But now that Trump is returning to the White House, he believes that it is an “absolute necessity” for the US to get “ownership and control” of the huge Arctic territory. And even more shockingly, he says that he will not rule out the use of military force to achieve this objective – though threatening “huge tariffs” remains his preferred option.
Flabbergasting as such pronouncements may seem, they are no laughing matter. Greenland is an important and sensitive diplomatic issue. Its status should be treated with care and compassion, lest a much larger crisis ensue. That would not serve anyone’s interests.
History matters here. Greenland was a Danish colony until 1953, when it became an actual province of Denmark. The vast island (the world’s largest, in fact) then adopted home rule in 1979. Since 2009, Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have maintained a wide-ranging autonomy arrangement in which a few policy domains – primarily security and defense – remain under the control of the government in Copenhagen.
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