The Danes are talking...
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With Trump.
Wonder what Trump really wants?
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/11/denmark-response-trump-greenland-threat
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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The whole article:
Trump’s Talk of Buying Greenland Energizes Island’s Independence Movement
Many in Danish territory don’t want to sell to the U.S., but they are open to the idea of a closer relationshipMax ColchesterJan. 11, 2025 at 12:01 am
Jørgen Boassen, a 50-year-old bricklayer and Trump admirer, was at the airport in Greenland’s capital Nuuk this week wearing a MAGA hat to cheer the arrival of Trump Force One.
But Boassen, who helped organize the visit from Donald Trump Jr., says he has no interest in President-elect Donald Trump’s entreaties to buy the icebound island. “We can’t be sold,” he says. Instead, he wants to further Greenland’s push for independence, and to that end, Trump’s interventions are proving unexpectedly useful.
Greenland is a self-ruling part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Danish government says it is willing to grant Greenland full independence if there is local support, and recent Greenlandic elections and polls indicate there is.
Like many independence movements, the Greenlandic campaign is butting up against uncertainty over what happens next when freedom is secured. The Danish government has said that if Greenland became independent, it would stop around $600 million in annual handouts—about half the island’s budget—raising doubts over how the new nation would fund itself.
The Trump jet took Donald Trump Jr. to Nuuk, Greenland, this week.
The Trump jet took Donald Trump Jr. to Nuuk, Greenland, this week. Photo: Emil Stach/Zuma Press
Trump’s recent threat of a trade war with Denmark is changing the negotiating dynamic, says Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. The Danish government now might be more open to agreeing a divorce deal that includes some continued payments to ease Greenland’s path to independence, he says. “My prognosis is that the Danish government will accept it in the next few years,” he says. An independent Greenland would then be free to forge its own security or economic ties with the U.S., Denmark or anyone else.“What Trump has said is that we are valued in the U.S., he wants to help us,” says Pele Broberg, the leader of one of Greenland’s pro-independence parties, Naleraq. “We can become independent with the help of other states.” However, Broberg says he has no desire to become part of the U.S.
Trump on Thursday night seemed to double down on his offer. “The people of Greenland would love to become a state of the United States of America,” he said. “Now, Denmark maybe doesn’t like it. But then we can’t be too happy with Denmark and maybe things have to happen with respect to Denmark having to do with tariffs.”
In April, Greenland goes to the polls in a vote that could fire the starter gun on independence for the territory of 57,000 people. The last time elections were held, pro-independence parties got 80% of the vote.
At least one apparent Trump fan was on hand Tuesday for a visit to Nuuk, Greenland, by Donald Trump Jr.
At least one apparent Trump fan was on hand Tuesday for a visit to Nuuk, Greenland, by Donald Trump Jr. Photo: Daniel L. Johnsen/Shutterstock
Just days before Donald Trump Jr.’s arrival, the prime minister of Greenland made a New Year’s address to the nation saying that a draft constitution for the country has been prepared and that the independence process should be triggered. “It is now time to take the next step for our country,” Múte Egede said. “Like other countries in the world, we must work to remove the obstacles to cooperation—which we can describe as the shackles of the colonial era—and move on.”A 2009 Danish law lays out how Greenland can take the first step in the process: It must notify the Danish government, the two must negotiate a divorce agreement and the deal must then be ratified by a referendum in Greenland. The Greenlandic government has commissioned legal experts to work out the details of how step one would work with a two- year deadline.
Pro-independence campaigners in Greenland would like to adopt a “free association” model, similar to the relationship between the Marshall Islands and the U.S. or the Cook Islands and New Zealand.
The concept would allow Greenland to be a sovereign state, and even a member of the United Nations, while continuing to receive financial grants and security guarantees from a richer partner state. In return, it could offer enhanced security or trade cooperation. Such an agreement could be made with Iceland or another country such as the U.S., says Broberg. He says a partner nation could be found given Greenland’s rich natural resources and strategic location in the Arctic.
A poll conducted in 2019 showed 68% of Greenlanders want their country to become independent from Denmark sometime in the two decades to come.
Boassen, who welcomed Donald Trump Jr., and enjoyed a buffet lunch with him at a local hotel, says he would like to establish greater security ties with the U.S. to avoid being invaded by Russia. Some Greenlandic politicians, meanwhile, have urged that Greenland should tie itself closely to Denmark and the European Union.
Some of Trump’s advisers have privately acknowledged a sale of Greenland is unlikely, but an expansion of U.S. military and financial presence on the island is a possibility. A poll in 2021 showed that 69% of Greenlanders favored more cooperation with the U.S., compared with 39% who favored tighter cooperation with China.
Pram Gad, at the Danish Institute for International Studies, says the idea that the U.S. needs to buy Greenland to achieve its geopolitical aims is “crazy.”
After Denmark was invaded by the Nazis during World War II, Greenland became a de facto U.S. protectorate. Denmark took Greenland back after the war ended, but a 1951 treaty gave the U.S. significant responsibility over Greenland’s defense, including jurisdiction over areas of American bases. The U.S. has the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland for which it pays no rent. Greenland, as part of Denmark, is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The U.S. has managed to halt Chinese investment in the country, including a proposal to build runways there, in the past.
Greenland has its own parliament and decides nearly all domestic matters, including taxation and granting access to mine its huge mineral reserves. It has sought to court investors, including from the U.S., for years to come and establishing mining operations—but with limited success. Denmark still controls foreign affairs, military and monetary policy.
Denmark has sold bits of its empire to the U.S. before. In 1916, it sold the Danish West Indies, a group of islands in the Caribbean, to the U.S. for $25 million in gold. Last month, the Danes responded to Trump’s overtures by upping military spending on Greenland, announcing the purchase of two new inspection ships, two additional dog-sled teams and an upgrade for one of Greenland’s three main civilian airports to handle F-35 jet fighters.
The king of Denmark also updated the royal coat of arms to include an enlarged image of a polar bear, a symbol of Greenland, in an attempt to underscore the monarchy’s attachment to the place.
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Foreigners are welcome to visit, but only just to visit:
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Interestingly that the ariport at Nuuk has been upgraded. United is giong to start offering direct flights to Greenland from the US east coast.
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If true, Trump is getting way out of line.
The officials said the call went badly, and that Trump was aggressive and confrontational when told the island was not for sale.
“It was horrendous,” said one of the officials.
“He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous,” said another.
Though Frederiksen reportedly told Trump he couldn’t annex Greenland, she did say she was up for cooperating on establishing more military bases and critical mineral mining.
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@George-K said in The Danes are talking...:
The suburb to the immediate east of mine has the same population as Greenland. THere's a lot of nothing there. But, location, location, location.
Oh no, there is a lot there. Oil, lithium, nickel, copper… What isn’t there is fauna such as speckled salamanders that would throw animal protection groups into a tizzy…
Me/rry/Christmas
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@LuFins-Dad said in The Danes are talking...:
@George-K said in The Danes are talking...:
The suburb to the immediate east of mine has the same population as Greenland. THere's a lot of nothing there. But, location, location, location.
Oh no, there is a lot there. Oil, lithium, nickel, copper… What isn’t there is fauna such as speckled salamanders that would throw animal protection groups into a tizzy…
I smelt that post a mile away.
