A Whopping 85% of Greenlanders Do Not Want to Become a Part of the US
"Trump shouldn't have Greenland. Greenland is Greenland," said Denmark's foreign minister.
Greenlanders have spoken: An overwhelming majority of them do not want to leave the Kingdom of Denmark to instead become a part of the United States.
Denmark's Berlingske and Greenland's Sermitsiaq reported Tuesday that a poll conducted for the newspapers by the research firm Verian found that a whopping 85% of Greenlanders are opposed to joining the U.S., an idea that U.S. President Donald has aggressively pushed in recent weeks.
Trump has also claimed that the people of Greenland want to be a part of the U.S. "I think the people want to be with us," Trump said last week, according to the BBC.
Only 6% of Greenlanders said they want to leave the Danish Realm in favor of the U.S., and 9% are undecided, according to Berlingske. The poll, which recorded the responses of 497 Greenlandic citizens aged 18 and over, found that 45% of Greenlanders said they perceive Trump's interest in Greenland as a threat.
"Trump shouldn't have Greenland. Greenland is Greenland," said Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Denmark's foreign minister, on Tuesday, according to the Financial Times.
Since taking back the White House in November, Trump has publicly mused about not only seizing Greenland, but also retaking the Panama Canal and making Canada the 51st state.
In early January, he refused to rule out using military force to take over the canal and Greenland. "It might be that you'll have to do something. The Panama Canal is vital to our country," Trump said at a press conference. "We need Greenland for national security purposes."
Speaking on Fox News a day later, Trump's appointee for national security adviser, former Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), said that Trump's ambitions over Greenland have to do with geopolitical competition and natural resources. Greenland, the largest noncontinental island and a territory of Denmark, is mineral rich. The Arctic island is increasingly an arena of competition between China, the U.S., and Russia as ice melts and opens up new trade routes, according to the Financial Times.
During his first term, Trump directed his aides to examine whether the United States could purchase Greenland, which is home to the U.S. Space Force's Pituffik Space Base.
Last week, the Financial Times also reported on a phone call between Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Trump, during which Trump insisted that he's serious about taking over Greenland.
"He was very firm. It was a cold shower. Before, it was hard to take it seriously. But I do think it is serious, and potentially very dangerous," said one European official who was briefed on the call and quoted anonymously by the Financial Times.
Even before the findings of the poll were reported on, Greenlanders had shown little enthusiasm for Trump's plan. "Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom," the leftist Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede said in December.
Egede has said that he wants independence from Denmark for Greenland.
