A summit between Greenland, Denmark and Washington has done nothing to calm our fears as the US steps up its efforts to take control of my country
T
he year has started out in familiar fashion for Kalaallit – the people of Greenland. The US president has once again threatened to take control of the world’s biggest island, just like he did back in 2019 and in 2024/25. Yet it feels different this time.
This time it seems as if there are more concrete plans being shaped within the Trump administration to annex Greenland. Trump wants to “take” it “whether they like it or not”, as he stated at a recent White House press conference. And the only option he seems to be offering currently is to do it “either the nice way or the more difficult way” – whatever that means. These are obviously plans for the forceful theft of Indigenous land and a self-governing territory; they are loud threats against our democracy – threats that are coming directly from the US president, again and again, through the media. That is scary. And the Greenlandic people do not feel safe.
A diplomatic conversation finally took place on Wednesday. The foreign ministers of Greenland and Denmark, Vivian Motzfeldt and Lars Løkke Rasmussen, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, met in Washington DC, with the US vice-president, JD Vance, as host. That’s the same JD Vance who tried to set up an official visit to Greenland with his wife in March last year, but was turned away by Kalaallit and ended up only visiting the US military base at Pituffik. The one who has been very vocal about his dissatisfaction with the EU and Denmark’s efforts in the Arctic. As you can imagine, this became the basis for a great deal of unease for Kalaallit, and everyone seemed to be holding their breath while waiting for some kind of clarity on what was in store for the future of Greenland as this historic meeting was happening.
