This follows a longstanding American belief that the Western Hemisphere belongs exclusively to the United States, and Washington can do whatever it wants to the locals.
As the Arctic becomes increasingly important for national security and trade, Washington believes it must assert its claim to the bitterly cold, sparsely populated polar region.
The discussion has raised fears that if Trump takes the territory militarily, he could undo the European-US alliance entirely.
Both the US and Denmark are NATO members. Such an action would indeed fracture the alliance, leaving Europe on its own without guarantees of White House support against Russia.
The European Union would be left flailing, the chaos giving new fuel to the already ascendant far right across the bloc to dismantle liberal democracy.
There are other options for Trump. He is still offering to buy the place. Don’t laugh. That’s how the US ended up with Alaska.
And The New York Times reported that Trump could simply expand the American military presence already in Greenland.
Still, the White House’s disregard for the international order and the president’s wild rhetoric about Greenland have Europe worried.
Claiming that the territory is dependent on just “two dog sleds” for its defence is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.
It’s typical disinformation from Trump. But a segment of the American electorate will always buy it, even though the US military has had bases in Greenland since the 1950s.
What often gets lost in the discussion is what the territory’s indigenous Greenlanders want.
With less than 60,000 people, most of them Inuit, Greenland’s population might seem like small potatoes compared to the genocides in places like Gaza and Sudan.
However, Donald Trump’s expansionist desire is rooted in an American past that has always looked at North America’s indigenous population as a pest needing to be extinguished.
Or, at the very least, marginalised and isolated to a degree that white society can ignore the natives. Think Indian reservations in the United States. That would be ideal for Trump.
In that sense, there is no contradiction between Trump’s rabid anti-immigration policy and a disregard for the original North Americans who preceded the arrival of Trump’s German family.
Greenlanders are clear that they want to be left alone. Can you blame them? They know what they’re in for.
In 2025, Euractiv reported that “An overwhelming majority of Greenlanders want independence at some point, but only 6% want their semi-autonomous country to secede from Denmark to become part of the US instead.”
According to the article, polling “shows that 84% of Greenlanders want their homeland to be independent from Denmark. Yet almost half, 45%, say they only want it if it does not have a negative impact on their standard of living”.
Unsurprisingly, Trump boosters on both sides of the Atlantic have come out swinging for the US president, employing all the expected stereotypes of European weakness as possible.
American writer Paul du Quenoy advocated for a US takeover in The Telegraph–a sign of imperial fraternity between Toryism and Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
Du Quenoy wrote that the “Danish armed forces have fewer personnel than New York City’s police department. Copenhagen’s investment in its island possession is impecunious, building on a long and unfortunate colonial legacy of neglect.”
This left Greenland open in a hostile world, and it would benefit from the US taking over. “Left to Denmark, Greenland’s security is doubtful. With America in charge, it is assured,” du Quenoy said.
It’s typical Telegraph material, if you’ve ever read the rightwing UK paper. Sucking up to the White House does wonders for British self-esteem, an exercise that the country’s tabloid media excels at.
It sounds more like a mob protection scheme rather than global security, but Americans have gotten used to that over the last year.
However, the fact is that Greenlanders, like other indigenous groups in North America who have fought for their rights over the centuries, have had to fight their colonisers without a voice on the world stage, as sovereign states have more power to do.
Instead, they get passed around like toys between European and American imperial powers, revealing all the weaknesses of a country that is independent in name only.
And while Danes can sometimes be seen as peaceful, Nordic leftists, Denmark has been just as racist and vicious toward Greenlanders as Americans have been toward Native Americans.
Denmark, for example, engaged in the forced sterilisation of Inuit women in the 1960s and 1970s, decades otherwise synonymous with youth culture and antiwar protests. Particularly in Denmark.
“Children torn from their families and women forcibly fitted with IUDs,” reads a headline from El País about the human rights abuses committed under the Nordic model of social democracy.
Greenland’s Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, has thanked European leaders for resisting Trump’s advances, urging the Americans to play by the rules:
“Once again, I urge the United States to seek respectful dialogue through the correct diplomatic and political channels and utilising preexisting forums that are based on agreements already in place with the United States,” Nielsen wrote on social media last week.
To deaf ears, I might add, at least in the United States, where I am writing this article. Native Americans rarely get listened to by Washington. The Danish-Inuit leader is likely even more invisible.
The gravity of breaking up the European alliance cannot be understated. That is for certain.
However, Trump’s desires for Greenland should be thought of as the continuation of the imperialist conquest against Native American tribes and the takeover of Hawaii from its indigenous population.
It’s not just Trump misbehaving. The Greenland crisis is just another chapter in the settler colonial assault on native populations.
If you ever wondered why American politicians turn a blind eye to the Palestinian genocide, let US history be your guide.
Photograph courtesy of James Stringer. Published under a Creative Commons license.
