Donald Trump wants Greenland, but despite what the president-elect would have you believe, Greenland doesn’t feel the same about him.
Donald Trump’s first son recently paid a visit to the island, landing mere hours after his father pledged to “Make Greenland Great Again.” Donald Trump Jr. was greeted by a crowd of MAGA-hat wearing Trump supporters, who cheered as he stepped off the plane in Greenland’s capital city of Nuuk. The younger Trump told reporters that he came not as an ambassador, but as a tourist, hopeful “to see a lot of the sights, talk to some people and have a good time.” Donald Trump Jr. took the crowd to lunch at the Hotel Hans Egede, and later posed for a photo op in front of the hotel’s namesake, a Danish missionary widely seen as a symbol of colonialism on the island. The Greenlanders at the scene didn’t seem to mind, and Trump Jr. handed out “Make Greenland Great Again” hats to the gleeful crowd.
According to Jørgen Bay-Kastrup, the hotel’s chief executive, Donald Trump Jr. wasn’t dining with Trump supporters, but homeless people promised a free lunch.
When asking about the crowd, Bay-Kastrup claims that Trump Jr. “had just met them in the street and invited them for lunch, or his staff did. But I don’t think they knew who they were inviting.” The hotel executive believes that the crowd didn’t even know who Trump Jr. was, but rather “found out later” after they had eaten the traditional Greenlandic lunch of fish and caribou the younger Trump laid out for them. A spokesperson for Trump Jr. denied Bay-Kastrup’s claim, calling it “beyond the pale ridiculous.”
Trump Jr.’s visit to Greenland comes on the heels of his father’s calls to claim U.S. ownership of the island. In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote that it was an “absolute necessity” that Greenland fall under America’s control “for purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World.” This isn’t the first time that Trump has vied for the world’s largest island, he once floated the idea of purchasing it from Denmark during his first term in office. Denmark’s response was a resounding “no.” Now Trump is taking a much more aggressive tact in order to gain control of the island, and has flirted with the idea of using the United States military in order to do so.
The reasons why Trump wants Greenland are myriad. Greenland is currently home to an important United States military base—the Pituffik Space Base—which provides both missile defense and surveillance for America’s armed forces. It is the United States’ northernmost military base on Earth, allowing the U.S. military to establish a foothold in the Arctic Circle. Greenland is also rich in rare minerals that could be used to create electric car batteries and wind turbines, and also contains vast quantities of oil and natural gas.
While Trump and his younger son are working to create the illusion of Greenlandic support for U.S. control of the island, the reality is not in their favor. In a post of Facebook, Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede wrote “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our yearslong struggle for freedom.” Former prime minister Kuupik V. Kleist concurred, telling CCN “you don’t simply buy a country or a people”—especially not with one single hotel lunch.
Published: Jan 18, 2025 12:03 am