Greenland Cracks Door Open to Trump’s Imperialist Dreams
Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede said he would take a meeting with Trump.
Getty Images
Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede said that he’s “ready to talk” with President-elect Donald Trump following Trump’s repeated calls to acquire the island.
When asked if he was in touch with Trump at the Friday press conference in Copenhagen, Egede said he was not, but added that “we are ready to talk,” per The Hill. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was also in attendance and said that she had asked for a meeting with Trump as well.
Although Egede noted that he’s ready to speak to the president-elect, he reiterated that “Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic.” Denmark’s constitution protects Greenland’s autonomy.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen (R) and Chair of Naalakkersuisut, Múte Bourup Egede (L) at a joint press conference in the Mirror Hall at the Prime Minister's Office on Jan. 10, 2025.
Kristian Tuxen Ladegaard Berg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Trump previously floated the idea of buying Greenland during his first term, but seemed to get more serious in a December Truth Social post where he described the acquisition as an “absolute necessity.”
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote on Dec. 22.
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His son, Donald Trump Jr., also visited the island earlier this week to see “some of the most magnificent areas and sights” the president-elect shared.
U.S. businessman Donald Trump Jr. arrives in Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 7, 2025.
Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images
“My son, Don Jr, and various representatives, will be traveling there to visit some of the most magnificent areas and sights,” Trump wrote in a Jan. 6 Truth Social post shortly after Don Jr.’s trip was first reported. “Greenland is an incredible place, and the people will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our Nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside World. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”
When asked by New York Times journalist David Sanger if he could “assure the world” that he won’t be using “military or economic coercion” to seize control of Greenland and to retake the Panama Canal at a news conference in Mar-a-Lago earlier this week, Trump said he “can’t.”
“No, I can’t assure you on either of those two,” Trump replied. “But I can say this, we need them for economic security.”
Egede previously addressed Trump’s Greenland ambitions in December sharing in a statement, “Greenland is ours.”
“We are not for sale and will never be for sale,” he continued. “We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”
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