Denmark’s prime minister will aim to shore up a united front with Greenland on Thursday during a visit to the autonomous territory, which US President Donald Trump has vowed to take over.
Tensions between the United States and Denmark have soared since Trump has said repeatedly he wanted to take control of the resource-rich Arctic island for security reasons.
“It is clear that with the pressure put on Greenland by the Americans, in terms of sovereignty, borders and the future, we need to stay united,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Wednesday after arriving on the island for a three-day visit.
Frederiksen’s visit comes on the heels of a trip by US Vice President JD Vance last week that both Nuuk and Copenhagen viewed as a provocation.
It also follows the formation of a new Greenland coalition government led by the centre-right Democrats party, which won a general election in March.
“I have but one wish and that is to do all that I can to take care of this marvellous country and to support it at a difficult time,” Frederiksen said.
Observers say her visit will reassure the island of 57,000 people, the vast majority of whom, polls show, want to become independent from Denmark but do not wish to become part of the United States.
“I think it’s very, very important and it’s very reassuring for Greenlanders to see a Danish head of government,” Mikaela Engell, an expert on the Arctic territory who previously served as Denmark’s High Commissioner to Greenland, told AFP.
Earlier this year, “the Danish government was almost invisible,” she said, describing Copenhagen’s efforts as tip-toeing, trying to accommodate US interests and not antagonise Trump.
But after the general election and Vance’s visit, the “gloves have come off,” Engell said.
Marc Jacobsen, a researcher at the Royal Danish Defence College, told AFP that the visit would give Denmark an opportunity “to show coherence, to show support, to talk about what can they do more concretely, both in terms of how to respond to the United States, but also in terms of concrete cooperation investments.”
– Elephant in the room –
Frederiksen is also expected to maintain the position laid out earlier by Denmark’s foreign minister “that it is possible to enhance US military presence” under a 1951 defence agreement.
During his visit last week to the Pituffik military base, Vance castigated Denmark for not having “done a good job by the people of Greenland,” by allegedly under investing in security.
Denmark’s Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen responded in a post on social media that “We are open to criticisms, but let me be completely honest, we do not appreciate the tone in which it’s being delivered.”
Denmark’s foreign ministry has said efforts are underway to set up a meeting between Lokke and his US counterpart Marco Rubio at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers this week in Brussels, but “neither Greenland nor the Arctic are planned to be discussed”.
“It will be the elephant in the room, right?” Jacobsen said.
“But the thing is that if they were to talk about the Arctic and Greenland, then someone from the Greenland government should be present, that’s the agreement between Denmark and Greenland,” he said.
According to The Washington Post, the White House is currently estimating the cost for the US federal government to control Greenland, and the potential revenues it could derive from exploiting its largely untapped natural resources.
