Link to article: https://apnews.com/article/greenland-trump-arctic-election-7d7fb1f07e1df2f28924e010073318e5
March 11 marks Greenland’s parliamentary elections, whose results won’t be determined for another couple of weeks due to the difficulty of receiving ballots from areas with harsh terrain. Greenland is a self governing territory of Denmark with around 56,000 people, most who have an indigenous group heritage. Trump has started making comments about buying Greenland and bringing it into the United States, which Greenland’s current government rejects as well as a majority of their population. Trump’s interests over Greenland stem from the land’s rare earth minerals and strategic placement for North Atlantic shipping. Current polls show Greenlanders favor independence and have no desire to be an American, but do not have a negative view of Americans. Further showing that these are no normal times, attention to this typically local process of democracy has risen, with the presence of journalists from all over the world. A member of parliament stated that Greenland is looking for stronger ties with Europe to help secure their sovereignty. Greenlanders have strong opinions about their independence and some are quite wary of Trump, so people are waiting to see how things might play out in the results for these elections.
Clearly, Trump wants Greenland for their rare earth minerals and placement along shipping routes in the North Atlantic. This is all in his efforts to maximize the U.S.’s security and power, especially for the future when considering the possibility of a more unstable world order. I imagine Trump’s comments about Greenland have pushed citizens to take on a more nationalistic approach to their politics which may be shown in these upcoming election results. An interesting point as well, is the idea that Greenland is looking towards stronger bonds with Europe to guarantee their well-being- which is probably a push in the opposite direction Trump desired. I don’t know if Trump will continue to push the topic of buying Greenland, even with the heavy rejection from a majority of the population, but will perhaps keep the idea of stronger ties with Greenland in the back of his mind because of their strategic importance for the future. Trump had discussed publicly about buying Greenland back in his first term (2019), but as we can see, has done nothing to work towards that statement other than mentioning it again now. I do not believe that Trump’s desires for Greenland is enough to spur any huge conflict, as it is not in the goals of either stakeholder to do so. Trump is directly challenging the current world order and other countries are wary of how things may play out.