Kalaallit Nunaat, more commonly known as Greenland, has always belonged to the Inuit. Its history, however, is often told by outsiders – Vikings, missionaries and colonial powers. For millennia before Viking explorer Erik the Red set foot on its shores in AD983, Greenland has been home to Inuit communities who, unlike the Norsemen, thrived in its vast and harsh landscape.
Today, as Donald Trump pushes his proposal for the United States to assume control of Greenland from Denmark for reasons of ‘international and economic security’, the question of who this land belongs to is more pressing than ever. His remarks have rekindled decades-long debates in Greenland about decolonization and independence.
In response, Greenland’s prime minister Múte Bourup Egede said his government was ‘ready to talk’ to the president but pushed back against the suggestion that Greenland was for the taking. ‘We do not want to be Danish; we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlanders,’ he said in January. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, has reiterated that ‘it’s up to Greenland to decide its own future’ and has called for European leaders to ‘stand together’ in the face of Trump’s proposition.
On March 11 these questions about self-determination and outside interests will loom large as voters among the island’s 56,000 population – 88 per cent of whom are indigenous Inuit – head to the polls to vote in the island’s general election. There is also speculation that an independence referendum might be called, which Greenland has had the right to hold since 2009, when its self-rule law came into effect.
Since Trump’s proposal, how Greenland pursues this path towards independence has brought it into the global spotlight, with journalists descending on Nuuk, our capital. Many have asked whether we would prefer to be under American or Danish control. While the suggestion that Greenland must choose between either is misguided, recent polling indicates that the overwhelming majority of people reject the idea of joining the US.
Poles apart
Across environmental, economic and security issues, Trump’s agenda reveals fundamental contradictions between the American and Greenlandic world views. Even his desire to ‘buy’ the island clashes with the fact that private land ownership in Greenland does not exist in the western sense. Individuals can apply for permission to build homes in specific areas, but they do not own the land.
Trump’s interest in exploiting Greenland’s rich natural resources, including oil, gas, rare earths and minerals, conflicts with our relationship to the environment and traditional ways of life. This was evident in our last election in 2021 when one of the key issues was a proposed uranium mining project in southern Greenland. Instead of prioritizing economic exploitation, voters overwhelmingly supported Inuit Ataqatigiit, the party that pledged to halt the project.
For some Inuit the prospect of increased American influence is preferable to the status quo. Tupaarnaq, a friend now living in Canada, said she would prefer an American passport to a Danish one. Others, including the prime minister himself, see Trump’s interest as a potential opportunity to increase trade with the US, which would help boost Greenland’s economy and its slow recovery from its centuries-long trade monopoly agreement with Denmark.
History of exploitation
These reactions reflect a deep dissatisfaction with Greenland’s status as a Danish territory. For centuries Denmark’s interests in Greenland have been based on the exploitation of natural resources, from whaling, coal and minerals historically, to fish and rare earth elements today.
A recent documentary Orsugiak – the White Gold of Greenland suggests that over a span of 140 years until 1987 Denmark earned 400 billion Danish Crowns (more than £44 billion) from cryolite mining in Greenland. Speaking on Danish radio, Greenland’s prime minister said the annual subsidy from Denmark shouldn’t be considered a welfare subsidy but instead a ‘transfer order from the gain from the cryolite mine’.
Other historic tensions linger. The widespread, ongoing mistreatment of indigenous families by the Danish welfare system and effects of the IUD scandal – in the 1970s Danish doctors in Greenland fitted thousands of women and girls with contraceptive devices without their consent – have entrenched these feelings of mistrust.
This disaffection has had political consequences. The fishing and hunting community, which accounts for about 16 per cent of the workforce, has always been an important constituency. But when I asked one fisherman how he planned to vote his response echoed a broader sentiment among the Inuit: ‘I don’t vote. I’m at sea and won’t be on land when the election happens.’
Language barriers exacerbate this sense of alienation. Greenlandic politics is often conducted in Danish, requiring a higher proficiency than is taught in public schools.