Five parties issue joint statement after US president warns he would acquire the island \u2018the nice way or the more difficult way\u2019<\/b>
\nFive parties issue joint statement after US president warns he would acquire the island \u2018the nice way or the more difficult way\u2019
Greenlanders \u201cdon\u2019t want to be Americans\u201d and must decide the future of the Arctic island themselves, politicians in the self-governing Danish territory have said, after Donald Trump warned the US would \u201cdo something whether they like it or not\u201d.
The leaders of five political parties in the Greenlandic parliament issued a united statement on Friday night, soon after the US president reiterated his threats to acquire the mineral-rich island.
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be Americans, we don\u2019t want to be Danish, we want to be Greenlanders,\u201d said the group, which included the island\u2019s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen. \u201cThe future of Greenland must be decided by Greenlanders.\u201d
Stressing the desire of the people of Greenland, a former Danish colony, to have self-determination, they said: \u201cNo other country can meddle in this. We must decide our country\u2019s future ourselves \u2013 without pressure to make a hasty decision, without procrastination, and without interference from other countries.\u201d
The statement was signed by Nielsen, his predecessor as prime minister, M\u00fate B Egede, and Pele Broberg, Aleqa Hammond and Aqqalu C Jerimiassen.
At a meeting with oil and gas executives at the White House earlier on Friday, Trump had said Greenland was crucial for US national security. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to have Russia or China occupy Greenland. That\u2019s what they\u2019re going to do if we don\u2019t. So we\u2019re going to be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way,\u201d he told reporters.
Trump is \u201cactively\u201d discussing making a potential offer to buy the island with his national security team, the White House confirmed earlier this week.
Greenlanders have repeatedly expressed their refusal to be part of the US, with 85% of the population rejecting the idea, according to a 2025 poll.
Polling also shows only 7% of Americans support the idea of a US military invasion of the territory, which the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, recently said would mean the end of \u201cNato and therefore post second world war security\u201d.
She has urged Trump to stop threatening to take over the country, saying the US has \u201cno right to annex any of the three countries in the Danish kingdom [meaning Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands]\u201d.
Trump said on Friday: \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for me, you wouldn\u2019t have a Nato right now.\u201d When asked whether his priority was preserving the alliance or acquiring Greenland, he previously told the New York Times: \u201cIt may be a choice.\u201d
Asked about Trump\u2019s statement, the head of Nato\u2019s forces in Europe, US Gen Alexus Grynkewich, said he did not wish to comment on whether the alliance \u2013 which includes Denmark \u2013 would survive without the US.
But he responded on Friday by saying Nato was far from being in a crisis.
\u201cThere\u2019s been no impact on my work at the military level up to this point \u2026 I would just say that we\u2019re ready to defend every inch of alliance territory still today,\u201d he said.
\u201cSo I see us as far from being in a crisis right now,.\u201d
The US has operated a military base on the northwestern tip of Greenland since the second world war, where more than 100 military personnel are permanently stationed. Existing agreements with Denmark would allow Trump to bring as many troops as he wanted to the island.
But Trump told reporters on Friday that a lease agreement was not enough. \u201cCountries have to have ownership and you defend ownership, you don\u2019t defend leases,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll have to defend Greenland,.\u201d
Trump previously made an offer to buy the island in 2019, but was told it was not for sale. Since then he has claimed that Greenland, which has vast natural resources including rare-earth minerals and potentially huge oil and gas reserves, \u201cis covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place\u201d.
In an interview with the Guardian on Friday, Jess Berthelsen, the chair of SIK, Greenland\u2019s national trade union confederation, said people in the territory did not recognise the US president\u2019s allegations that Russian and Chinese ships were scattered throughout its waters. \u201cWe can\u2019t see it, we can\u2019t recognise it and we can\u2019t understand it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n