Denmark has also announced that it will invest billions in Greenland’s security. The day after Trump re-claimed the island, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced the purchase of, among other things, two patrol boats and two long-range drones. The proximity is an “irony of fate,” said Poulsen.
But the minister also knows that this cannot protect Greenland’s huge territory. This requires the help of other allies. “There are no concrete plans, but we will work with the US,” said Poulsen.
The relationship with the United States is tricky. Politicians like Greenland MP Aaja Chemnitz are outraged by Donald Trump’s direct claims: “I don’t want to be a pawn in Trump’s wild dreams of expanding his empire and including our country in it,” she wrote on Facebook. And Prime Minister Egede has also made it clear that the island is not for sale.
But at the same time, Greenland is striving for significantly closer cooperation with the USA. This would probably be absolutely necessary if Greenland actually broke away from Denmark. The largest island in the world relies heavily on money from the mainland.
This also has to do with the unique conditions on the island. As many people live on the huge island as in a medium-sized German city. There are no roads between the settlements and one can hardly speak of cities anyway. Greenlanders make money primarily in the fishing industry. Denmark contributes half of the budget volume, the equivalent of around 550 million euros, every year.
In the future, this money should be replaced by the exploitation of natural resources. Greenland is theoretically rich in this: oil, gas, coal, uranium and rare earths, among other things, lie beneath the thick ice sheet. But mining in the Arctic region has not yet proven profitable. For example, a ruby mine on the southernmost tip of the island slipped into bankruptcy in 2022 because the sale of the gemstones was not profitable enough.
