It takes coming to Greenland to realise quite how preposterous Donald Trump’s claims to the place are.
There are his comments that its waters are infested with Russian and Chinese ships, for instance.
“This is crazy nonsense,” one member of Greenland’s ruling coalition told us.
MP Nivi Rosing says Greenlanders are taking Trump seriously though.
“I’m personally afraid that he has to have a reason to take over our country by saying, oh, they have Russian and Chinese ships in their waters, which we don’t have,” she says.
For the record, there is no evidence of an armada of hostile enemy vessels marauding the waters of Greenland nor has the Trump administration offered any.
There are those who say that this is all Trumpian bluster. Don’t take him literally. Greenlanders cannot afford to be so nonchalant.
Ex-ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, expresses such sentiments in The Spectator.
He says: “The future of Greenland is being misunderstood. Trump is not going to ‘invade’ it. He doesn’t need to. He’s already there. What will happen is that the threats to Arctic security posed by China and Russia will crystallise in European minds.”
Danish military forces participate in an exercise with NATO troops in Greenland in September 2025. Pic: AP
The threat to take it over, he implies, is a ruse to knock Western heads together to accept a “considerably beefed-up role and status and military deployment by America”.
Try telling that to Greenlanders facing repeated threats from a predatory US president.
If it is just a device to improve Arctic security, they would say, Trump is sure going a strange way about it.
Under a 1951 treaty with Denmark, the US could reopen all the bases it had here in the Second World War and more. It does not take an invasion, annexation or the hyperbolic threat of one to do so.
Read more from Sky News:
How oil tankers tried to avoid seizure by US
US aims to control Venezuela oil sales ‘indefinitely’
For the people of Greenland and their political masters in Denmark, Mandelson might look a little naive.
They fear this is more about Trump’s baser instincts, his need for glory, to be the first US president in decades to acquire territory and expand America’s borders.
And they are upset and angry with him.
👉 Listen to Sky News Daily on your podcast app 👈
Klaus Iversen served in the Danish military in Greenland and knows the sacrifices Danes have made more than many for America’s security.
To be told Denmark is not pulling its weight is deeply offensive to veterans like him.
He says: “I feel offended, I feel sad. I have colleagues who died in Afghanistan and Iraq supporting the Americans down there, so of course we find that extremely strange and saddening.”
Klaus Iversen served in the Danish military in Greenland
There is a long-running resentment of Danish rule among many here. Accusations it has taken Greenland’s mineral wealth and not paid back enough. Claims it has not invested enough in critical infrastructure, from roads to welfare.
But they value everything their connection with Europe brings them here – the free education, the free health service, the cultural ties, the $500m (£370m) in annual financial aid.
Polls and last year’s election suggest there is no appetite for exchanging that for an uncertain future with the US.
Trump officials say they are confident the US will acquire Greenland one way or another by the end of his term in office.
They should perhaps have tried talking to its people first.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
