Greenland’s pension fund is mulling whether it should continue investing in U.S. stocks, in what its chief executive says would be a symbolic stand against President Trump’s push to seize control of the Arctic island.
SISA Pension, which manages aroundn 7 billion Danish kroner ($1.1 billion), currently has around a 50% exposure to the U.S., mostly in public equities. While no decision has been made, its board and investment committee have been debating the merits of divestment, CEO Søren Schock Petersen said in an interview.
“We are still discussing it and will continue discussing it. Probably some time in the future, we will say enough is enough,” Copenhagen-based Petersen said via telephone. “This continuous pressure will perhaps end with a decision that we now have to act and can’t keep ignoring it.”
Talk of selling U.S. assets by foreign holders resurfaced this week after Trump threatened to impose tariffs on goods from European countries opposing his push to take control of Greenland. But he reversed his tariff plan on Wednesday, citing a “framework of a future deal” that he said was reached regarding the island.
Petersen, who made his initial remarks before Trump appeared to ease his stance, later said he stood by his comments on the fund reconsidering its U.S. investments.
If the island’s pension fund decides to dump U.S. assets, it would be a remarkable shift given the premier status of U.S. equity markets. About 70% of the MSCI World benchmark is made up of U.S. stocks, whose outperformance in recent decades has fueled talk of “American Exceptionalism.” For almost everyone, it’s too big a market to ignore.
In Europe, some pension funds this week announced sales of U.S. Treasuries, while refraining from fully divesting from equities. Danish pension fund AkademikerPension said it’s planning to exit its roughly $100 million of U.S. Treasuries by the end of the month, while Sweden’s biggest private pension fund Alecta has divested most of its holdings since early 2025.
Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Thursday, Trump vowed “big retaliation” if European countries sell U.S. assets in response to his tariff threats, adding that the U.S. has “all the cards.”
Petersen, 65, acknowledged his fund, whose Treasury holdings are negligible, is too small for any stock sales to dent U.S. capital markets. The case for divesting stocks is also more complex than selling U.S. government debt, he said.
“Would that be a fair decision? Only half of the U.S. population voted for Trump,” he asked. “If our results come out and U.S. shares perform how they have done recently, will our members still appreciate it?”
The “worst-case scenario” would be a U.S. invasion, Petersen said. Greenland’s prime minister said Tuesday residents need to start preparing for a possible military invasion, even if it’s unlikely.
Petersen predicts most Greenlanders would depart for Denmark in that extreme scenario. That would likely hurt the valuation of the fund’s private investments across the island, such as a recently acquired stake in a local seafood firm, he said.
In the event of an invasion, Petersen assumes SISA’s assets wouldn’t be seized by the U.S., “but of course you never know.”
SISA was founded in 1999 and is owned by its more than 44,000 members. Its main office is in Nuuk, where it has six staff members.
“Our size is very small compared to the rest of the industry,” Petersen said. But any decision to divest U.S. assets “could be symbolic. It could be a signal.”
Ritchie writes for Bloomberg.
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