The US could take control of Greenland “tomorrow” by simple decree if it wanted, a Danish politician has said.
Given that there are today more US troops in Greenland than Danish troops, US President Donald Trump would simply have to declare that the Arctic island had become part of US territory, Anders Vistisen said on January 26.
Vistisen is the politician who told Trump to “f*ck off” in the European Parliament a few days ago.
“The ignorance around this is quite astonishing because the US already has more troops in Greenland than Denmark,” Vistisen told Brussels Signal. “They could basically just declare it occupied”.
Denmark has a naval presence in Greenland but no army base. “The Americans with their 300 or 400 soldiers would already have the military dominance, if that was the idea,” said Vistisen.
US troops are stationed in Greenland as part of an early-warning radar base.
The idea that Trump would exercise force on a NATO ally would, though, be “significant”, he said. “They could, of course, take Greenland militarily speaking tomorrow if that was what they wanted to do.
“You never know with Trump … but no one sees this as the most probable outcome … I’ll see it before I believe it.”
European NATO members want to keep the President’s refusal to rule out military force in Greenland “low” on the new agenda “and try to have Trump forget Greenland”, said Vistisen.
“If there really was a military intervention this would blow up too much” and would create an “unprecedented” trans-Atlantic rift, he said.
His comments followed reports of a “horrendous” call between Trump and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederisken, during which Trump applied pressure on the Danish Government to give up its Crown territory or face tariffs.
US security concerns were in reality “non-existent”, Vistisen said. “The US already has all the military presence they want in Greenland, and if they wanted more there would be no problem in getting it.”
Trump wanted to be seen as an “expansionist” President as proven by his decision to “put up the portrait of Andrew Jackson” in the Oval Office, said Danish People’s Party member Vistisen.
“I think he wants to see himself as a president who has expanded US territory for the first time in many, many years.”
Jackson, the 7th US president, expanded US territory by, among other actions, wresting control of Florida from Spain.
Most US citizens “if they knew what Greenland was would be quite disappointed,” Vistisen said. Greenland politicians, who have called for independence, “are in over their head” because they do not have the staff, the expertise or the funds necessary to govern themselves, he added.
Denmark currently pumps around €1 billion a year in subsidies into the island to maintain social services such as health and education.
“It’s very big responsibility to take on dealing with superpowers”, when you only have a population of less than 60,000, said the politician.
Greenland of its own admission does not have a sufficient number of civil servants to run the Arctic Council presidency, a small inter-governmental body, Vistisen added. “It’s a skeleton government, there’s no-one there”.
Denmark sold its Caribbean colonies — now the US Virgin Islands — to the US a century ago and the inhabitants today feel forgotten by the US administration, he claimed.
These island inhabitants “to this very day don’t have voting rights for the [US] presidential elections. They don’t have a voting member of the House of Representatives and if you go and ask them they feel completely forgotten”.
If Greenlanders “looked at how the US treats its indigenous population, how it has treated its overseas dominions like the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico … they’d see that they are treated much much worse than Greenland is treated under the Danish Kingdom”.
Greenlanders enjoyed the Danish welfare system, including free healthcare and free schooling, Vistisen pointed out. “I don’t see anywhere in America where they have that setup.”
On mining for minerals and raw earths, the US also already had all the potential access it needed, it has been claimed. Mines would, though, have to be dug so deep and in such inhospitable terrain that the private sector has until now abandoned the prospect, according to Vistisen.
“I don’t see anyone queuing up”.
A “Canadian company with Chinese owners” had tried to mine uranium but gave up because “Greenlandic home rule was too politically unstable” – the local government pulled out of its agreement. Any US company “could strike a deal tomorrow but nobody wants to do it because … it’s way too expensive”, compared to mining in other countries, Vistisen said.
Greenland’s politicians “have had this idea for 20 years that they could get economic independence by having mining”.
No other international conglomerate has tried mining in Greenland because “it’s an economic basket case to do it”. There is “no infrastructure, no ports, no roads, there’s nothing … and on top of that you would have to import every single worker”, he said, adding that valuable minerals “are buried so deep under ice that it makes it economically completely unrealistic”.
On Trump’s tariff threat against Danish companies, Vistisen said that Denmark is “one of the few countries with a trade deficit with the US”, which would make such a move unattractive. The Danish sector most exposed was the pharmaceutical industry but even here most Danish companies already produced in the US, he said.
The Danish Government should have taken “much more strong” line with Trump on Greenland, according to Vistisen.
Given that Greenland has no competence over foreign affairs, Denmark has with its “amateurism” created uncertainty by letting the island’s politicians talk directly with US officials.
“There is no realistic aspiration for what we can call a truly independent Greenland. It’s more a question of which superpower is going to take the place of Denmark if they want to have a different arrangement,” he said.
On his “f*ck off” comment, Vistisen said European Parliament leaders had yet to contact him regarding any potential fine regarding his use of language. While that was still possible, it would be “interesting if they decide to fine me for being hard on Trump”, he said.
