Greenland is “not for sale,” its prime minister declared Monday, responding to an allusion by Donald Trump to the sovereignty of this autonomous territory of Denmark already in the sights of the future American president during his first term.
• Also read: Trump threatens to regain control of the Panama Canal
• Also read: Panama rejects Trump's threat to regain control of the canal
• Also read: Trump says he wants to “stop the transgender madness” on its first day
“For national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America believes that ownership and control of Greenland makes it an absolute necessity,” the Republican wrote on his Truth Social network on Sunday, without specifying this. what he meant by that.
Statements that echo those made in 2019. Donald Trump, then president, had openly considered the purchase by the United States of this Arctic territory, evoking a potential “large real estate transaction” which would be “strategically interesting” .
The affair had caused a diplomatic crisis with Denmark, a member of NATO and to which this icy territory four times the size of France is attached.
“Greenland is ours,” Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede responded on Monday, the day after Donald Trump’s message.
“We are not for sale, and we never will be. We will not give up our long fight for freedom,” he wrote on Facebook, adding: “But we must remain open to international cooperation and trade, especially with our neighbors.”
Donald Trump's sentence on Sunday accompanied the announcement of his next ambassador to Copenhagen, Ken Howery, former American ambassador to Sweden, financier and co-founder of PayPal.
The former and next American president, earlier in the weekend, threatened to regain control of the Panama Canal.
Autonomous since 1979, Greenland, 56,000 inhabitants on an immense territory of nearly 2.2 million square kilometers located some 2,500 km from the tutelary power, has its flag, its language, its culture, its institutions and a first minister.
Its natural resources (oil, gas, gold, diamond, uranium, zinc, lead) and global warming, which opens new maritime routes, arouse the desires of the United States, China and Russia in particular.
Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, recently acquired a new airstrip in order to be able to land larger airliners and develop tourism. From summer 2025, Nuuk Airport will host two connections per week to New York.
