Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte B. Egede pushed back against speculation the island could be up for grabs, after United States President-elect Donald Trump’s renewed fixation on acquiring it this week sparked a political storm.
“We don’t want to be Danes. We don’t want to be Americans. We want to be Greenlanders,” he told reporters on Friday following a lengthy meeting in Copenhagen with Danish commonwealth leaders.
This week, Trump sent shockwaves across Europe when he refused to rule out using military force to annex the world’s largest island, an autonomous territory of 57,000 people that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
When asked if he had spoken with the incoming U.S. President, Egede said “no, but we are ready to talk,” echoing Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s statement on Thursday that she had asked to speak with Trump.
As to what shape the Danish-Greenlandic relationship might entail in the future, Egede suggested that Greenland wants to be in charge: “There is more that unites us but the desire to be master of one’s own house is understandable to everyone in the world.”
“When I have to talk to another country’s leader, I have to be together with the Danish ambassador. It’s things like these where we wish to have our own voice. That, I think, is legitimate, when one wants to build their county on those values,” Egede said.
Frederiksen, for her part, emphasized the need to stand together to have a seat at the global table, to tackle the three-fold pressures on Arctic from the U.S, China and Russia.
“What matters the most right now is getting more elbow room in foreign policy. It is something that we are looking at,” she said.
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