Greenland’s party leaders on Friday rejected President Trump’s continued push to take over the self-autonomous Arctic territory.
“We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four party leaders said in a statement Friday night, according to The Associated Press.
It comes as the Trump administration continues to float using military force to take over Greenland while also considering purchasing land from Denmark. The U.S. already has a military base there but the White House has said President Trump’s goal is to have more control, citing national security.
“Greenland’s future must be decided by the Greenlandic people,” the territory’s party leaders wrote on Friday.
“As Greenlandic party leaders, we would like to emphasize once again our wish that the United States’ contempt for our country ends,” their statement says.
Trump’s quips about acquiring the island have ignited international concerns about Greenland’s independence and sovereignty from lawmakers in Washington and NATO allies alike.
We are going to do something in Greenland whether they like it or not. Because if we don’t do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland, and we’re not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor,” Trump said.
“Security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the UN Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders. These are universal principles, and we will not stop defending them…” Frederiksen wrote in a joint Tuesday statement alongside the President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the United Kingdom.
“Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland,” the statement continues.
Denmark’s PM asks America to stop ‘threatening’ Greenland
Notably, Trump talks about seizing Greenland – autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark with a population of 57,000 – despite already having military presence on the island under a 1951 agreement.
Meanwhile, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen urged America to stop “threatening” Greenland. “I have to say this very clearly to the United States: it is absolutely absurd to say that the United States should take control of Greenland…It makes absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland…The US has no right to annex any of the three nations in the Danish kingdom,” Frederiksen said.
Trump aide says world ‘governed by force’
However, in remarks likely to alarm Washington’s European allies, White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller dismissed concerns about Danish sovereignty and international law.
“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power,” Miller told CNN on Monday.
“There is no need to think or even talk about this in the context of a military operation. Nobody is going to fight the US militarily over the future of Greenland,” he added.
Just hours after Saturday’s Venezuela operation, Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, posted a map of Greenland painted in Stars & Stripes on X, accompanied by the text “SOON.”
Greenland, the world’s largest island with a population of just 57,000, is not an independent Nato member but is covered by Denmark’s membership in the Western military alliance.
Even eight decades after World War II, Greenland remains strategically important. In the event of a major war, control over Greenland could also mean control over key Atlantic sea routes.
