Globalization and Sovereignty
Donald Trump’s Greenlandic Anabasis

The United States, represented by Donald Trump, has exacerbated long-accumulated contradictions and unresolved problems in Danish-Greenlandic relations, and now Denmark has an additional and extremely effective incentive to continue expanding contacts with Greenland on foreign policy, the military, and security issues, investing more quickly and actively in the long-overdue modernisation of its Arctic presence, including with respect to defence. This has long been expected from Denmark by both the United States and other NATO member states, writes Nikita Belukhin, Junior Research Fellow at the Department of European Political Studies at IMEMO RAS.

The current contradictions in relations between Denmark and Greenland, which US President-elect Donald Trump is playing on, did not arise suddenly, but have accumulated over time. These have worsened since the end of 2020, after Denmark’s Arctic strategy, which was designed for 2011-2020, had expired: a new document that was supposed to replace it by the beginning of January 2025 has not been presented, although Denmark will take over the chairmanship of the Arctic Council from Norway in May 2025. At the same time, the ties between Greenland and Denmark may be stronger than they seem at the moment. Thus, in his speech on January 1, 2025, Mute Egede, the current head of the Greenlandic autonomy, mentioned the Danish “shackles of colonialism” among other things. He relied on the Greenlandic Autonomy Act of 2009 as a legitimate and legally supported way of gaining independence. After all, its provisions were developed in close cooperation with those very “colonialist” Danish authorities. According to Article 21 of the aforementioned Act, in addition to intergovernmental negotiations between Denmark and Greenland, the approval of the Greenlandic Parliament (Inatsisartut) and the holding of a referendum in the territory of the autonomy, the Danish Folketing must also express its consent to the conditions of independent existence of Greenland.

Among the largest Greenlandic parties, there is generally unity regarding the fundamental idea of ​​independence, but there is much less agreement on the specific steps, terms and conditions for achieving it, which has led to a sharp internal political struggle.

This was indirectly reflected in those rather vague expressions that Egede used to describe the prospects for independence. Thus, he did not name the exact or approximate dates for holding the referendum, starting negotiations with Denmark on gaining independence or other specifics regarding the way to it. He only stated that after the April elections in Inatsisartut “new steps will be taken on the preconditions already created.” At a press conference on January 10, 2025, following a meeting of the trilateral committee of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands on defence and foreign policy, he showed even greater moderation, saying that it is too early to talk about cutting ties with Denmark. At the same time, it should be noted that during 2024 Greenland nevertheless came closer to the practical implementation of Article 21 of the 2009 Act.

The Arctic Heat Around Greenland
Tero Vauraste
A more dominant presence of the US in Greenland commercially and politically would also have geostrategic elements. Greenland is not within the European Union and hence potential shifts can be decided by the Kingdom of Denmark in conjunction with Greenlandic Government.
Opinions

In the spring of 2024, the Greenland Autonomous Parliament instructed the government to begin preparations for the creation of an expert commission for the practical implementation of the provisions of Article 21 of the 2009 Act on the Autonomous Status of Greenland, which sets out the procedure for gaining independence. At the same time, Greenlandic politicians, while taking such a seemingly significant step, are excluding a number of important issues from the commission’s work in advance, in particular how an independent Greenland will exist without Danish financial support, which annually amounts to 4.3 billion kroner (almost half of the Greenlandic budget), how Greenland, being independent, will take on the tasks of defence and foreign policy and, finally, whether and to what extent the rights of the inhabitants of Greenland should be preserved in the event of its independence on the territory of Denmark, which is especially important in the context of access to education, healthcare, work and family ties. It is noteworthy in this regard that on December 10, 2024, the Danish Ministry of Justice announced, that from the beginning of 2025, passports issued in Greenland will have the option to indicate “Greenlander” as a nationality, which was approved by Greenlandic parties, but again raised the question of the criteria for belonging to the emerging Greenlandic community.

This approach gives grounds to say that these actions should rather be viewed as part of the election campaign, on the eve of the Greenlandic parliament polls in April 2025.

But the need to find a new model of political organisation that would give Greenland and the Faroe Islands more powers in the foreign policy sphere will not disappear in the near future.

The prerequisites for Greenlandic independence began to take shape long before Egede, and this process may still drag on indefinitely. The fact is that the gradual acquisition of independence is provided for by the 2009 Act itself, which allows the autonomous authorities of Greenland, after agreement with Copenhagen, to take over various areas of government. This is precisely the argument that a member of the Folketing (legislature) from the Conservative People’s Party made in January on the Deadline political debate program in response to accusations from a Greenland representative that the so-called Commonwealth is just a relic of colonialism.

Greenland, however, has not achieved significant results in the process of transferring new areas of public life and regulation under its control, but has placed great emphasis on the practical expansion of its own foreign policy and diplomatic competencies, which at times, according to Danish assessments, contradicted both the Danish constitution and the 2009 Act. In this regard, it is noteworthy that on the official website of the Greenlandic government, in the section dedicated to the Ministry of Independence and Foreign Affairs, it is stated that the foreign policy competencies of the autonomous authorities are determined not only by the two aforementioned legal acts, “but also by practice,” which quite specifically indicates Nuuk’s desire to blur Danish powers in the area of ​​control over Greenland’s foreign relations. The current head of the Greenlandic government, in preparation for the April 6, 2025 parliamentary elections in the autonomy, is ready to raise the stakes in the dialogue with Denmark and seek additional concessions from it, following the criticism from the opposition. Thus, on January 8, 2025, the finance ministers of Denmark and Greenland formally signed an agreement concluded back in October 2024, that the Danish side will act as a guarantor of 95% of the loan obligations and other expenses related to the construction of a new hydroelectric power station on the territory of the autonomous island. It is quite possible that in the near future, Denmark will announce or take other political and economic steps aimed at developing Greenland, ensuring its interests and rapprochement with it, which were previously postponed in order to create a kind of counterweight to American persistence.

Thus, on December 20, 2024, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Denmark finally managed to agree on the distribution of roles within the framework of the upcoming Arctic chairmanship. Greenland will receive the post of chairman of the committee of senior officials, the Faroe Islands – his deputy, and Denmark will simply appoint a senior official. In addition, during the chairmanship, a permanent trilateral group will function to coordinate a joint position and actions.

The difficulty is that if the Greenlandic government really wants to achieve independence, it will have to conduct several extremely difficult negotiations in parallel – on the terms of the agreement with a new “sponsor” that could take Denmark’s place, conduct a dialogue on the conditions for gaining independence from the Danish crown and, no less important, maintain internal political unity and not allow inter-party disagreements to slow down international contacts and the movement towards independence itself. For Greenland, the past year of 2024 was full of diplomatic activity, although formally foreign and defence policies are under the jurisdiction of Denmark. Thus, in February 2024, Greenland adopted a new foreign policy and defence strategy, which replaced the outdated 2011 document. The main focus is on cooperation with the United States and Canada, while the “northern cooperation”, on the contrary, has faded into the background.

In March 2024, the head of the European Commission, during visits to the Faroe Islands and Greenland, opened the long-awaited EU Arctic Representation in Nuuk. In this regard, it seems curious why Nuuk in Greenland was chosen as the location for this EU representation, and not Reykjavik in Iceland, Kiruna in Sweden, Tromsø in Norway or Rovaniemi in Finland? Moreover, the EU announced the relative plans. back in October 2021, and in May 2022, the European Commission presented a draft agreement with Denmark and Greenland on the placement of the representative office. The initially planned opening date was scheduled for the spring of 2023, but due to the fact that, the discussion on the agreement began only in April 2023, its opening took place later. Greenland itself has previously actively sought to expand its diplomatic presence and now has missions in Copenhagen, Washington, Beijing, Brussels and Reykjavik. Thus, in March 2023, Greenland sent its diplomat to the Permanent Mission of Denmark to NATO, and in accordance with the new foreign policy strategy, it plans to open a mission in Ottawa, at the UN in New York, and also to appoint a diplomat to the Danish mission to the UN in Geneva.

In response to Trump’s statements and plans on January 9, 2025, Greenland, on the one hand, reiterated that the struggle for independence is its own business, and on the other hand, declared its openness to constructive cooperation with its closest neighbours, including the United States.

First of all, Greenland will not strive to join the United States, but to build close bilateral economic and military-political ties with Washington without control from Copenhagen and the need to involve Danish diplomats in this process each time.

A litmus test of the seriousness of Trump’s intentions will be the willingness to invest heavily in the development of Greenland's resource potential, not least rare earth metals. Here, American military might may prove powerless, since to date, foreign investors who decided to invest in this area before Trump have not achieved convincing results that could contribute to the “green transition” and reduce the rare earth dependence of the “collective West” on China.

As the experience of the “oil” and “uranium rush” around Greenland in the early 2010s shows, the development of the “Greenland virgin lands” may turn out to be unpredictably expensive and not as strategically important and valuable as it is presented in the major media.

Thus, in June 2021, the Greenlandic government prematurely suspended the oil strategy for 2020-2024, since a previous similar document for the period 2014-2018, was based on the assumption that 2-4 oil and gas fields would be developed on the Greenland shelf by 2018, and the actions of previous governments to create a preferential tax regime, provide free geological data and other services led to nothing. The economic, political and environmental costs ultimately remained too high, despite claims that climate change makes it easier to access new resources and reduces the cost of their extraction.

The development of Kvanefjeld, one of the largest rare earth deposits in southern Greenland, has been hampered by a moratorium on uranium mining and other resources if the uranium content in the mined rock exceeds 100 g per ton, which came into effect on December 1, 2021, introduced by the current Greenlandic government, although earlier on October 24, 2013, the Greenlandic parliament, using the provisions of the 2009 Act, made it possible to mine uranium and other radioactive elements on its territory.

In both cases, the bills were adopted only by a small margin. Therefore, it is possible that after the April elections in Greenland, the issue of regulating uranium mining as a by-product will again appear on the agenda, given that a number of opposition parties have already called for a referendum on this issue. Another Tanbreez rare earth deposit, also in southern Greenland, which is in the process of being transferred to the Australian-American company Critical Metals Corp, cannot yet boast of serious success, like the previous owners of the deposit. In Austria, the European Lithium Co., which owns 83.03% of Critical Metals Corp, has been fined for market manipulation for several years in a row, so Greenland’s mining industry is not really about big players with a well-known reputation and name, but rather small companies with a dubious track record. However, interest in geological exploration and the acquisition of mining licenses in Greenland remains stable, and both Denmark and the United States have apparently made efforts to ensure that the Tanbreez deposit, previously owned by the private company of geologist Greg Barnes, does not fall into the sphere of influence of Chinese business.

It remains to be seen how serious Trump will be in the matter of developing the resource potential of Greenland. The attempts of his predecessors can be considered failures. 

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