The world’s largest island, yet fewer than 57,000 inhabitants call it home. A part of Denmark, yet governed by its own government and parliament. A land named for the color “green,” yet largely barren of greenery. This land of paradoxes is Greenland, a region that has recently resurfaced into public discourse due to one man more than 2,000 miles away — U.S. President Donald Trump.
Since his re-election, Trump has repeatedly called for U.S. control over Greenland, declaring in an address to Congress in March that he would “get” Greenland “one way or the other.” He has, when asked, refused to rule out using military force to take Greenland, an unprecedented move against a NATO ally. Meanwhile, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has repeatedly stated that Greenland is not for sale and remains “a part of the kingdom of Denmark.” The conflict between Denmark and the US over Greenland has been widely reported, but there is one party often left out in discussions regarding the island’s future: the Greenlanders themselves. For the people of Greenland, autonomy and eventual statehood have been the ultimate goals for years, with recent polls showing almost 80 percent of the population supporting a third option for the territory — independence. This third option is much less in the spotlight than the two alternatives of Danish or American control and must be considered and discussed more as a viable future path for the territory.
The reasons behind Greenlandic independence are straightforward. First, despite their claims of establishing an equal partnership with Greenland, Denmark has constantly treated Greenland as the lesser party. “Greenland’s White Gold” — a documentary on a Danish cryolite mine in Greenland — revealed that despite the single mine generating around €54 billion in revenue for the mining company and the Danish state, little of the money was given back to Greenland. Facing backlash, the Danish public broadcaster “DR” ultimately withdrew the program, but the damage had already been done. Greenland’s only two remaining active mines — the Nalunaq gold mine and Lumina’s White Mountain anorthosite mine — are both owned fully by foreign private companies with support from Denmark. For many native Greenlanders, it was but one example of how the island’s mineral wealth had been extracted and sold to benefit their former colonizers an ocean away, with their fair share of the profits robbed. If Greenland were independent, the territory would have much more control over its economic policies and resources, giving local Greenlanders more agency in their lives and giving them a greater say in how their resources are developed.
Second are the colonial crimes committed that have only recently come into the spotlight. Between 1966 and 1970, a large-scale contraceptive campaign fitted intrauterine devices into almost half of all women of childbearing age on the island, often without consent or even their knowledge in “routine medical examinations,” to limit Indigenous population growth on the island, which had recently doubled. The campaign deeply affected indigenous populations on the island and has been equated to “straightforward genocide” by Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede. During the same period, hundreds of Indigenous children were also taken from their families without consent to be raised as “model Danish citizens” on the mainland. Some of the kidnapped Greenlandic children are still unable to trace their biological parents to this day. Due to the lingering effects of past injustices, many indigenous Greenlanders seek to, once and for all, free themselves from the “shackles of colonialism.”
This desire for autonomy is reflected in a recent general election, where Greenland’s center-right opposition Demokraatit (Democracy) party, favoring a gradual approach to independence, unexpectedly won with 29.9 percent of the vote. Five of six political parties in Greenland favor independence, differing only in how fast it would take place.
Under the Danish Act in 2009, Greenland can legally declare independence from Denmark at any point following a referendum on the island. However, separation from Denmark does not entail joining the U.S. A survey in January found that 85 percent of Greenlanders opposed becoming part of the U.S, with nine percent undecided. This comes as Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance’s rhetoric on Greenland has recently ramped up, marking U.S. control over Greenland as a potential possibility. In a recent visit to Greenland, Vance declined to meet with any of Greenland’s government officials, instead implicitly threatening Greenland from a U.S. military base to acquire the island through military means. Trump has not backed down either, dismissing Danish territorial claims over the territory and saying on the day of Vance’s visit, “We need Greenland…We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of ‘Do you think we can do without it?’ We can’t.” Meanwhile, all five parties in Greenland’s parliament have rejected President Trump’s plans of control in a joint statement on March 14, with Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s likely next prime minister, calling Trump “a threat to our political independence.”
Instead, an independent Greenland under U.S. protection with strong economic collaboration with America and the E.U. presents a plausible third alternative to the territory’s future. Greenland can potentially enter into a “Compact of Free Association” with the United States, an agreement already employed between the U.S. and the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau. Such an agreement would grant Greenland independence and United Nations (U.N.) membership while providing U.S. defense, funding, and social services to the island. By allowing the U.S. to further assist in the island’s defense, current bases such as Pituffik Space Base could be expanded, and American strategic national security concerns would be addressed. Further equal economic collaboration under the agreement could ensure America and Europe receive the critical minerals they need while Greenland gets their fair share of revenue and economic development.
Either way, Greenland’s future should be up to its people, and its people alone, to decide. It is, after all, their island, as it always should have been.
Aaron Bai is a Lower from Hong Kong. Contact the author at abai27@andover.edu
