Greenland’s probable new prime minister has rejected Donald Trump’s effort to take control of the island, saying Greenlanders must be allowed to decide their own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, whose centre-right Democrats won a surprise victory in this week’s legislative elections and now must form a coalition government, pushed back on Thursday against Trump’s repeated claims that the US will annex the island.
“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Nielsen, 33, told Sky News. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.”
Greenland’s outgoing prime minister, Múte Egede, said he would convene a meeting of party leaders to jointly reject Trump’s threats, warning: “Enough is enough.”
“This time we need to toughen our rejection of Trump. People cannot continue to disrespect us,” Egede wrote on Facebook.
Egede continues to lead Greenland while a new government is formed.
“The American president has once again evoked the idea of annexing us. I absolutely cannot accept that,” he wrote.
“I respect the result of the election, but I consider that I have an obligation as interim head of government: I have therefore asked the administration to summon the party heads as soon as possible.”
The comments came after Trump repeated his vow to take over the island on Thursday.
During an Oval Office meeting with the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte, Trump claimed that Greenland’s election had been “very good for us,” adding: “The person who did the best is a very good person, as far as we’re concerned.”
Asked whether he thought the US would annex Greenland, Trump said: “I think it’ll happen.”
Trump said that “Denmark’s very far away” from Greenland and questioned whether that country still had a right to claim the world’s largest island.
“A boat landed there 200 years ago or something. And they say they have rights to it,” Trump said. “I don’t know if that’s true. I don’t think it is, actually.”
Trump said US control of Greenland could be important for national security reasons and even suggested Nato should be involved, but Rutte demurred.
With most Greenlanders opposing Trump’s overtures, the election campaign focused more on issues such as healthcare and education than on geopolitics.
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The 31 men and women elected to parliament on Tuesday will have to set priorities for issues such as diversifying Greenland’s economy, building infrastructure and improving healthcare, as well as shaping the country’s strategy for countering the US president’s “America first” agenda.
The Democrats won 29.9% of the vote by campaigning to improve housing and educational standards while delaying independence until Greenland is self-sufficient. Four years ago, the party finished in fourth place with 9.1%.
Nuuk resident Anthon Nielsen said the party’s victory would be good for the country.
“Most politicians want Greenland to be independent,” he said. “But this party who won, they don’t want to hurry things, so everything must be done right.”
Carina Ren, head of the Arctic program at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, said the results show that Greenlanders tried to ignore Trump and focus on issues that were important to them.
“The voters have been able to drag down all the drama, all the alarmist talk from the outside to say: ‘Well, this is about our everyday lives, our everyday concerns as citizens. Where are we going, how are we going to develop our society from the inside.’”
Now, Demokraatit will have to turn its attention to forming a governing coalition.
Naleraq, the most aggressively pro-independence party, finished in second place, with 24.5% of the vote. It was followed by Inuit Ataqatigiit, which led the last government, at 21.4%.
