(LONDON) — Thousands of people thronged the snowy streets of the Greenlandic capital of Nuuk on Saturday to have their say on a transatlantic crisis that has shaken the 76-year-old NATO alliance.

“Greenland for Greenlanders,” “Our land, not yours,” and “Yankee go home” were among the signs held aloft by marchers, accompanied by a plethora of red-and-white Greenlandic flags.

The 56,000 Greenlanders who inhabit the world’s largest island — which is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — have found themselves at the center of a geopolitical storm, as U.S. President Donald Trump wages an escalating pressure campaign to acquire the territory despite intense opposition from Greenlanders, Danes and America’s NATO allies.

The message of the weekend march in Nuuk was clear. But many Greenlanders fear that their voices are being lost in the transatlantic furor, Pele Broberg — the leader of the pro-independence Naleraq party — told ABC News.

“We are currently being caught in broader political conflicts driven by opposition to Donald Trump, because we are just a stepping stone between the Europeans and the Americans,” Broberg said.

“Everybody is busy and stepping on Greenland to make a point that Donald Trump is a bad man,” he added. “I’m not a pro-Trump guy. I’m not pro anything with the U.S. with regards to how they’re handling this situation.”

‘Territories don’t have any rights’
Naleraq is the second-largest party and the official opposition in Greenland’s parliament. While Greenlandic political parties have agreed on independence as a shared eventual goal, Naleraq is widely seen as pushing for a more immediate breakaway from Denmark. The party is also considered by observers to be the most open to U.S. cooperation.

Broberg was clear that he considers Copenhagen at least partly responsible for the crisis engulfing Greenland. “The problem is that everybody talked about the Greenlandic people without the Greenlandic people,” he said.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly said that Greenland belongs to Greenlanders and that no decision on the island’s future can be made without their agreement. But Broberg said that the framing of Trump’s bid to acquire Greenland as an attack on Denmark has sown confusion.

“Either Greenland truly belongs to the Greenlandic people, or it is treated as part of the Danish Kingdom. In practice, it cannot be both,” he said. Copenhagen, he said, “has managed to marginalize the Greenlandic government … They have managed to make it a matter of the Danish Kingdom and not the Greenlandic people.”

“Territories don’t have any rights — peoples have rights,” Broberg added.

Broberg said he believes there is “no doubt” that the Danish government is using the current crisis to undermine the goal of Greenlandic independence, using the threat of U.S. domination as a foil.

The Greenlandic government — currently led by the Demokraatit party — and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen have made clear they have no intention of joining the U.S.

“If we have to choose between the United States and Denmark here and now, we choose Denmark,” Nielsen said during a press conference earlier this month. “Greenland does not want to be owned by the United States. Greenland does not want to be governed by the United States. Greenland does not want to be part of the United States.”

The next general election in Greenland is scheduled for 2029, the year Trump’s second term ends.

Amid Trump’s threats, the leaders of all five political parties holding seats in Greenland’s parliament also released a joint statement. “We do not want to be Americans, we do not want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” they said.

A bipartisan U.S. Congressional delegation traveled to Denmark last weekend in a bid to reassure Danes and Greenlanders of their support. Delegation leader Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, said at an event in Copenhagen, “I hope that the people of the Kingdom of Denmark do not abandon their faith in the American people.”

Broberg, whose party placed second in last year’s elections with 24% of the vote, suggested there had been a damaging lack of communication between Nuuk and Washington.

“The problem is that they are reacting out of panic rather than having a clear strategy,” Broberg said of the Greenlandic government. “I encouraged them last year, before the elections, to actually go to speak to the U.S. representatives. But they didn’t want to do that because they felt insulted by the way they were talked about.”

‘This started with Trump’
Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Frederiksen at that time dismissed the proposal as “absurd.” 

President Joe Biden’s administration also showed a keen interest in Greenland, though it engaged in a softer approach. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the island in 2021 and told reporters he was there “because the United States deeply values our partnership and wants to make it even stronger.”

His trip followed bilateral successes in 2020 — before Trump left office — that saw the U.S. reopen its Nuuk consulate, expand cooperation at the American Thule Air Base, since renamed as the Pituffik Space Base, and agree to a new economic collaboration strategy.

Broberg said it is clear that Greenland is part of the long-term, bipartisan U.S. strategic picture. But the crisis over the island’s sovereignty, he said, “started with Donald Trump.”

“We’re not a pro-Trump or pro-U.S. party,” he said. “We’re a pro-Greenland party. We don’t tolerate anything of what came out of the American president’s mouth with regards to Greenland and its people’s rights.”

Broberg, a former Greenlandic foreign minister, urged dialogue. “You have to work this problem, not become the problem,” he said.

Still, Broberg acknowledged that the situation “has escalated to a point where simple solutions are no longer available,” citing the brewing transatlantic trade war. “I don’t see a way out of this that doesn’t involve an election in Greenland.”

Broberg said Naleraq foresees a free association agreement with Denmark twinned with a defense-and security-agreement with the U.S., under which Washington would gain exclusive rights to military operations on the island.

“Under the current defense agreement, the U.S. does not hold full military exclusivity over Greenland,” he said, referring to the 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement that gave the U.S. military access across the island. “That’s why you can see that Donald Trump looked at the stationing of troops this week as an escalation, as a provocation.”

Broberg also said Naleraq has discussed the formation of a Greenlandic coast guard — with personnel potentially numbering in the low thousands — to help guard Greenland’s 27,000-mile coastline.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed suggestions that a larger U.S. military footprint on Greenland can address his purported concerns over Russian and Chinese presence in the High North. “I could put a lot of soldiers there right now if I want. But you need more than that. You need ownership,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One this month.

Nonetheless, Broberg said his party is “genuinely interested” in working with the U.S. on security and trade. “We are, from a political point of view, looking to be globalist. We are a free trade country. We don’t impose tariffs on anybody, no matter what,” he said.

Asked if he was currently in touch with the Trump administration, Broberg replied, “Not at all.”

Trump has been dismissive of Greenland’s prime minister. After Nielsen said the island would not join the U.S., Trump told reporters, “That’s their problem. I disagree with him. I don’t know who he is. Don’t know anything about him, but that’s going to be a big problem for him.”

Subs in the fjords
Trump’s reasoning for wanting “complete and total control” of Greenland is the purported threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic.

NATO allies have said they agree that regional military capabilities and readiness should be bolstered. Last year, Copenhagen announced a $6.5 billion Arctic defense package in response to U.S. criticism that it had failed to adequately protect Greenland.

And last week, eight NATO nations sent small contingents of troops to Greenland for what they said were military exercises. In an interview early this week, Broberg was fiercely critical of what he described as that “very stupid” move, saying he felt it would be interpreted as “an escalation” by the U.S.

Broberg also said it was a mistake to send the troops to Nuuk and Greenland’s west coast. “The Russians are on the east coast, they’re in the northeast,” he said.

“If they really wanted to placate the US … they should put them on the northeast coast where nobody lives,” Broberg added.

Asked whether the Russian-Chinese threat to Greenland was genuine or concocted, Broberg replied, “I think the truth is somewhere in between … You don’t have smoke without some fire.”

But he noted that hunting parties — traveling over the frozen terrain quickly and quietly on dogsleds, a mode of transport Trump appeared to mock when criticizing Danish military capabilities in Greenland — “have, on occasion, reported seeing submarines near the coast or fjords.”

“We have never been told what kind of subs there are. But the presumption is Russian subs. So there is some truth to it. But if it’s crawling with them, or if it’s one every 10 years — I have no idea.”

 

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(LONDON) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney added his voice to the condemnation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to acquire Greenland during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, warning that the international community is “in the midst of a rupture.”

Several allied leaders have used their speeches at the annual event in the Swiss Alps to push back on Trump’s pressure campaign over Greenland, which has seen Trump and administration officials propose tariffs on NATO allies and even threaten the use of force to seize control of the massive Arctic territory.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Trump first raised the prospect of acquiring the minerals-rich island in his first term. Danish and Greenlandic politicians have repeatedly rebuffed such proposals.

NATO allies have mobilized to bolster Greenlandic security in response to Trump’s assertions that the territory — and the wider Arctic region — are at risk from growing Chinese and Russian regional influence.

On Tuesday, Carney warned that the world has entered a new “era of great power rivalry,” in which “the rules-based order is fading … the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

“Let me be direct. We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration,” Carney continued.

“But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited,” he added.

“On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future,” Carney said. “Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve our shared objectives of security and prosperity in the Arctic.”

Trump is scheduled to speak at Davos on Wednesday afternoon local time. Speaking with reporters before heading to Switzerland, the president showed no sign of softening his approach to the Greenland issue.

“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and we’re — we’re going to be very happy,” Trump said of the upcoming Davos trip during a press briefing. “But we need it for security purposes. We need it for national security and even world security. It’s very important.”

When asked by a reporter how far he was willing to go to secure Greenland, Trump replied, “You’ll find out.”

Other European leaders on Tuesday spoke at Davos and criticized Trump’s threat of tariffs on NATO allies related to Greenland. 

The president announced new 10% tariffs on all goods from the eight nations — Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands and Finland — that sent small contingents of troops to Greenland last week. The European nations said the deployments were for a military exercise intended to boost regional security.

Trump said the new tariffs will come into force on Feb. 1 and will increase to 25% on June 1. The president said the measures would remain in place until the U.S. is able to purchase Greenland.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a speech in Davos that the “proposed additional tariffs are a mistake.” Referring to the trade deal signed by the EU and U.S. in July, von der Leyen added, “In politics as in business, a deal is a deal.”

“Plunging us into a dangerous downward spiral would only aid the very adversaries we are both so committed to keeping out of the strategic landscape,” she said. “Our response will be unflinching, united and proportional.”

On Wednesday, von der Leyen said during a press conference at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg, France, “The threat of additional tariffs for security reasons is simply wrong.”

“We are at a crossroads. Europe prefers dialogue and solutions, but we are fully prepared to act, if necessary, with unity, urgency, and determination,” von der Leyen added.

European Council President Antonio Costa said, “Further tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and are incompatible with the EU-US agreement.” He added, “We stand ready to defend ourselves, our member states, our citizens, our companies against any form of coercion.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, criticized “competition from the United States of America through trade agreements that undermine our export interests, demand maximum concessions, and openly aim to weaken and subordinate Europe.”

Such measures, he said, were “combined with an endless accumulation of new tariffs that are fundamentally unacceptable — even more so when they are used as leverage against territorial sovereignty.”

The Greenland military exercises, Macron said, posed no threat and were a step taken to support Denmark. “Cooperating is not about blaming others,” Macron said. “We do prefer respect to bullies.”

On Wednesday, Paris called for new allied drills. “France requests a NATO exercise in Greenland and is ready to contribute,” a source at the Elysee Palace — which houses the presidential office — told ABC News.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, meanwhile, said in a post to Facebook on Tuesday that the autonomous territory must be “prepared for the worst.”

“It is unlikely that we will be arrested by force, but we cannot be indifferent either,” Nielsen wrote. “Our neighbor did not miss this opportunity. It is therefore important that we be prepared for the worst.”

Nielsen said Greenland is in “constant dialogue with the EU and NATO and others,” about the situation.

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