Donald Trump’s declared intent to annex Greenland – with or without the consent of Denmark or the (fewer than 60,000) inhabitants of Greenland – meant that Denmark, like Canada and Panama, found itself on the world stage facing unexpected and unwanted American attention. Clearly, Trump’s proposed action poses a serious threat to the integrity of the State of Denmark. However, Greenland is only one of several arenas where U.S. policy under Trump places traditional Danish foreign and security policy under pressure. An important part of the story is the war in Ukraine and its consequences for the Baltic region, as well as the U.S.-Europe relationship concerning security and trade policy.
To understand the reactions of the Danish government and Danish public opinion to this Trumpian threat, we first need to look at the evolution of the relationship between Denmark and Greenland in the context of Denmark’s place in European and international politics since the end of World War II. In doing so, we first need to distinguish among three political entities: the State of Denmark, Denmark, and Greenland.
The State of Denmark – Rigsfællesskabet – refers to the union of the Kingdom of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The Faroe Islands and Greenland are represented in the Danish Parliament (Folketing) on an equal footing with mainland Denmark, so unlike the Puerto Rican representatives in the U.S. Congress, MPs elected in Greenland and the Faroe Islands have full voting rights in the Folketing.
Denmark – or mainland Denmark – is the European part of the State of Denmark. The Danish government is also the government of mainland Denmark, while Greenland and the Faroe Islands are self-governing territories within the State with their own parliaments and governments. Greenlanders are primarily Inuit. In the national language, Greenland is Kalaallit Nunaat, the Greenlandic parliament Inatsisartut and the Greenlandic government Naalakkersuisut.
Denmark and the United States
The formal Denmark-U.S. alliance can be traced back to either 1949 when NATO was established with Denmark as a founding member, or to 1941 when Henrik Kauffman, who served as the Danish ambassador to the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, rather singlehandedly entered into an agreement with the U.S. government giving it unlimited access to military bases in Greenland during the war. Despite official Danish misgivings about Kauffman’s actions, the Danish government eventually accepted the agreement, and after the war U.S. troops stayed on . The 1941 agreement was renewed and updated in 1951 to meet the demands of the Cold War. Following the signing of the 1951 agreement, the United States began constructing a permanent base in northern Greenland, what is now the Pituffik Base.
Beyond Greenland, Denmark tended to keep a low profile in NATO during the Cold War. This was partly a result of disagreements within the dominant Social Democratic Party over Denmark’s international status – Denmark had a significant pacifist minority up until the 1990s – and partly an effort to minimize tensions in the Baltic region where the USSR and the Warsaw Pact had a massive military presence. This meant that Denmark opposed any permanent stationing of U.S. troops, and nuclear weapons in particular, on Danish territory. In the end, the United States never made any formal demands for the stationing of troops or nuclear weapons on Danish territory other than Greenland.
The situation evolved after 1989 when Denmark took a more active role in European and international military conflicts. It was uncontroversial for Denmark, like all NATO members, to support the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan following the September 11 attacks. However, the opposite was the case when the centre-right government under Anders Fogh Rasmussen, backed by the right-wing populist Danish People’s Party, decided to actively support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Parties on the left of the political spectrum led by the Social Democrats advocated following France and Germany in opposing the policies of Bush 43. This was a manifestation of the cleavage in Danish security policy, with the Social Democrats seeking to maintain a position independent of the United States and the main right-wing parties staying as close to U.S. policies and demands as possible.
After the Bush years these controversies died down, with the Social Democrats moving away from their traditional ambivalence vis-à-vis the United States and international engagements. Denmark, like other European governments during this period, chose to cut military expenditures, while under both left- and right-wing governments it emphasized the close U.S-Denmark alliance both bilaterally and within NATO. This closeness reflected Danish public opinion: Rufus Gifford, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark during the latter part of the Obama presidency, became a local celebrity, a symbol of American soft power.
On the other hand, an agreement made during the Obama presidency gave U.S. intelligence agencies access to monitoring internet communication traversing Denmark – a monitoring operation the United States used to gather intelligence about allies, notably the German government. The details of the secret agreement were revealed by Claus Hjort Frederiksen, a leading politician from the right-wing Liberal Party and former defence minister, resulting in a minor national scandal and an impasse in Denmark-U.S. relations.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was a turning point in modern Danish security policy. Denmark has consistently been one of the strongest European supporters of Ukraine. This can be seen as an extension of the Danish support for the Baltic states following their independence from the Soviet Union – Denmark never recognized the Soviet annexation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Danish support for Ukraine has been not only vocal but also practical, notably in delivering a squadron of F-16 fighter jets to the Ukrainian air force. Given Denmark’s population of only six million, its steadfast substantial contribution stands in contrast to the often-hesitant responses of Germany, France and the United States during the first years of the war. Joe Biden’s clear pro-Ukraine position was replaced by one of ambivalence under Trump, casting doubt on U.S. support for NATO. Still, like its counterparts in Germany and France, the Danish government has avoided open criticism of the Trump administration’s policies on Ukraine.
Denmark, Europe and the European Union
To understand the challenge Trump poses, we need to begin with Denmark’s traditional position vis-à-vis European integration and U.S.-Europe relations. Traditionally, Denmark has tended to be Eurosceptic – Euroreluctant may be a better term – when it comes to expanded European cooperation on foreign and security policy. A stable U.S. presence in Europe is one way for Denmark to balance European (notably French) ambitions to make Europe a major power.
When the current Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, assumed office in 2019, she followed this Eurosceptic tradition by aligning Denmark with the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden – “the frugal four,” all with strong Eurosceptic or even anti-EU parties – and rejecting efforts to develop a common European economic and industrial policy. In so doing, Frederiksen’s Social Democrats placed themselves in the mainstream of Danish politics, with parties to their left and right opposing, for differing reasons, increased European integration.
However, in the last five years, because of threats of Russian military activity in the Baltic area, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and changing U.S. policies, Denmark has abandoned this approach. Most notably, after a referendum in 2022, Denmark gave up its right to opt out of EU defence cooperation, as provided for in the 1993 Edinburgh Treaty.
Denmark and Greenland
Donald Trump’s first and second terms in office have coincided with a period in which the relationship between the Danish government and Greenland became increasingly strained, as new movements have emerged calling for full Greenlandic independence. As these demands have intensified, the traditional political elites in Greenland have had to take them into account. As well, from a postcolonial perspective, there has been more focus on Danish policies in Greenland during the pre–self-government era, in the context of a weak Greenlandic economy’s dependence on economic support from Denmark.
Until the 1940s, Greenland was a Danish colony, and Danish policy sought to shield traditional Greenlandic society from modern influences. In the postwar era this was replaced by a policy of forced modernization, with many Inuit moved from fishing and hunting communities into larger towns. One result was high levels of alcohol and drug abuse and an extremely high suicide rate among Inuit.
To run a modern welfare state, Greenland – under the direction of the Danish government – opened its labour market to Danish workers and civil servants. This left Greenland with a two-tier society: an elite (Danes) working for shorter or longer periods and enjoying a relatively high standard of living, and a lower class engaged in unskilled labour. Higher education was established on a large scale only during the 1960s, which has meant that Greenland in the 2020s still largely lacks an indigenous administrative elite.
From an Inuit perspective, the story of Danish-Inuit relations is marked by Danish authorities’ efforts, bordering on abuse, to control even intimate aspects of daily life. A case in point is a recently discovered policy in which Danish authorities during the 1960s and 1970s fitted Inuit women with intrauterine contraceptive devices to inhibit the growth of the Inuit population, without providing information to the women or seeking consent for the procedure. While Danes have traditionally presented themselves as benevolent patriarchs, younger Inuit have focused on the highly uneven power relationship.
A key dimension of the relationship is the question of freeing the Greenlandic economy from its dependence on the fishing industry and consequently on Danish economic support. A key focus of Danish-Greenlandic relations since the 1970s has been finding and exploiting oil reserves in the Arctic and the rights to revenues from them. In recent times that focus has moved to the prospect of mining rare minerals, which has led to interest on the part of Chinese and U.S. businesses in Greenland’s natural resources.
During this period, Greenland has gradually evolved toward a higher degree of self-government. In 1979 a system of home rule was set up, which in 2009 expanded into a self-governing authority. Under the new rules, Greenland can call for administrative competencies to be transferred from Denmark. A lack of economic resources and personnel has meant that successive Greenlandic governments have not made use of the provision.
This development paralleled a challenge to the Greenlandic political and economic elite by a younger generation. In 2009 the pro-independence Inuit Ataqatigiit (IA) party under Kuupik Kleist managed to form the first government without participation of Siumut, the left-wing party that dominated Greenlandic politics. This led to a radicalization of the Siumut position on independence from Denmark, while IA leaders have tried to balance the long-term goal of political independence with developing the Greenlandic economy outside of the fishing industry.
In the last decade this political rivalry has been expanded with the emergence of two new parties: Naleraq, which now competes with Siumut on a radical independence platform, and Demokratiit, which has supplanted the old Attasut party as the party calling for maintaining close ties with Denmark in the short term, while not excluding eventual independence.
The instrument of self-government includes a procedure for Greenlandic independence, and the Danish government has pledged to respect the result of a referendum in which a majority chooses that option. All politicians in Greenland are aware that an independent Greenland would be much poorer than one dependent on Denmark (or the United States). Hence the interest in developing an independent mining industry. Given China’s interest in developing relations with Greenland, Greenlandic political leaders have expressed some hope that China will become a counterweight to the United States and Denmark.
The United States and Greenland
The United States showed interest in acquiring Greenland several times during the 19th and 20th centuries, but Denmark always rejected these advances. From the 1940s until Donald Trump’s expression of interest in 2019, Greenland served as a Cold War outpost. Thule Air Base, now Pituffik, served as an intelligence station for early warnings on Soviet activities in the Arctic and as a strategic bomber base. Although there was an agreement not to deploy nuclear weapons on Danish soil, Thule likely played a part in the global U.S. nuclear response system with tacit Danish approval.
Following the end of the Cold War, the United States kept the base but scaled back activities significantly. It left a contingent of only some 150 troops stationed there, down from 6,000 during the heyday of the Cold War, though the treaties do not set any limits on the number of troops the United States can post,
This state of affairs ended abruptly in 2019 when President Trump unexpectedly expressed his desire to buy Greenland from Denmark. Trump framed his initiative as a real estate deal, drawing a parallel to the sale of the Danish West Indies to the United States in 1916. The motives behind the move were never really made clear, and Prime Minister Frederiksen, supported by all sides in Danish politics, rejected Trump’s advances, which led to a cooling of relations between Denmark and the United States during the remainder of Trump’s first term. The initiative, it is worth noting, did not win support from those parties in Greenland which called for independence from Denmark.
Danish and Greenlandic reactions to Trump 45 and 47
During the Biden presidency, the question of future U.S.-Greenland relations was overshadowed by the crisis triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One significant change in Danish policy was the adoption in 2022 of an agreement that for the first time would allow the United States to station troops in mainland Denmark during peacetime. This change predated the invasion of Ukraine but was motivated by a fear of Russian aggression in the Baltic area – something which also led Sweden and Finland to abandon their traditional neutrality and join NATO.
While all parties have rejected Trump’s demand for Denmark to cede Greenland, the form this has taken has varied. In her response in 2019, Prime Minister Frederiksen called the demand absurd – a rather unusual choice of words in the world of international politics. The response in 2025 used more diplomatic language, again with political leaders from all sides rejecting U.S. advances. Publicly, government ministers and other political leaders emphasized the integrity of the State of Denmark along with Denmark’s internationally recognized authority over Greenland and the principle of self-determination for Greenland’s population. A visit to Greenland in May 2025 by King Frederik, who received a warm welcome, can be seen as a diplomatic response to the U.S. Vice Presidential couple’s visit to Pituffik, which was seen as a provocation by Danish authorities – and received nothing like a warm response.
It is obvious that Danish political leaders are very annoyed by the declarations and actions of the U.S. government, but that the Danish government for the moment has chosen to use more traditionally diplomatic language in its responses. The government is being very quiet about its diplomatic and political contacts with other European countries, but it is likely that it is looking for support from its European allies as Europe seeks to integrate opposing Trump’s Greenland demands into the wider European position vis-à-vis the United States.
Consensus on such matters in Denmark is possible since the right-wing populist parties, which are supported by some 15 per cent of the electorate, have avoided taking any position that could be seen as supporting Donald Trump or the U.S. Republicans, even though anti-immigration, climate-sceptic and anti-“woke” policies are high on their political agendas.
In the Greenlandic political arena, on the other hand, the effects of Trump’s initiatives have been dramatic. The outgoing Naalakkersuisut under Inuit Ataqatigiit leader Mute B Egede was challenged by Naleraq over Greenlandic independence, and Siumut, the traditional party of government, experienced a split between the party leadership, which sees independence as a medium-term goal, and a faction that wants full independence in the near future, even if this means close cooperation with the United States.
This was reflected in the results of the Inatsisartut election in March 2025. Naleraq, as expected, won big, doubling its share of the vote to 25 per cent, while Inuit Ataqatigiit’s share fell from 37 to 21 per cent. But it was the moderate centre-right Demokratiit that emerged as the largest party, increasing its share of the vote from 10 to 30 per cent.
The election can be seen both as an anti-establishment vote, with Siumut being relegated to minor-party status and Inuit Ataqatigiit suffering major losses, and as an expression of a polarization of the electorate, with 40 per cent of voters supporting pro-independence parties and 60 per cent supporting Greenland staying part of Denmark in the short and medium term.
Following the election, Demokratiit leader Jens-Frederik Nielsen formed a government including all parties in Inatsisartut except for Naleraq. The government formation reflects the dilemmas faced by Greenlandic political leaders. On one hand, most Inuit, for the cultural and economic reasons mentioned above, have a negative view of the relationship with Denmark and want closer relations with Inuit in North America. On the other hand, they see that Denmark is the only credible guarantor of a stable Greenlandic economy in the short and medium term. At the same time, any attempt to increase cooperation with China as a counterweight to Danish and U.S. influence is certain to provoke a U.S. response, which under Donald Trump could threaten Denmark’s very economic and political independence.
At the time of writing, the main Greenlandic and Danish worries concern the possibility of increased U.S. activities aimed at strengthening pro-independence voices in Greenland and undermining Danish-Greenlandic relations through different kinds of propaganda activities. In this context, the envisioned expansion of the U.S. consulate in Nuuk – something which would normally be welcomed by the Danish government – has taken on special significance.
A very complicated web of relationships
While Denmark would be prepared to expand self-government in Greenland with a view to the eventual creation of an independent State of Greenland, ceding Greenland to the United States under any arrangement would be completely unacceptable to any Danish government regardless of its political composition. Similarly, even if many – especially younger – Greenlanders feel a stronger connection with the Inuit in North America, the overwhelming majority of Greenlanders are strongly opposed to the prospect of Greenland being relegated to the status of a U.S. territory like Puerto Rico.
The erratic style of Donald Trump and the Trump administration poses several problems for the Danish and Greenlandic governments, because its motives and strategies – supposing they even exist – are extremely hard to gauge. If the U.S. administration expresses a wish to expand its military presence in Greenland to counter increased Russian and Chinese activity in the Arctic, this could easily be covered under existing treaties. Moreover, some kind of preferential U.S. access to minerals in Greenland and limits to Chinese activities on the island could probably be agreed to by both Danish and Greenlandic authorities, even if those negotiations would be more complicated.
However, Trump’s imperialistic – or narcissistic – ambitions regarding an expansion of U.S. territory are another story. Even though Greenlanders feel neglected and even treated in a colonial manner by Denmark, Greenland is a more integral part of Denmark than the Virgin Islands – and, arguably, the Faroe Islands – ever were.
No Danish government would voluntarily cede Greenland to another state. U.S. aggression leading to the annexation of Greenland would cause a rift in Denmark-U.S. relations, with strong repercussions for U.S.–European Union relations. Before Trump this was inconceivable; but now the United States has become an erratic and potentially dangerous actor on the international stage. Still, Trump appears to tend to back down in the face of strong opposition, something Denmark’s leaders have shown. Stay tuned.
