Saturday morning news broke that both Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede are ready to sit down with President-elect Trump to discuss his security concerns for Greenland.
This from therightscoop.com.
The Dutch maintain Greenland is not for sale, however, they are ready:
[To] discuss any other U.S. request regarding the island.
Here is more from Axios:
Denmark sent private messages in recent days to President-elect Trump’s team expressing willingness to discuss boosting security in Greenland or increasing the U.S. military presence on the island, two sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios.
Trump’s refusal to rule out military force to take control of Greenland was effectively a threat to invade a longstanding NATO ally. Those comments caught Copenhagen and many other European capitals off guard.
The Danish government wants to convince Trump, including through the messages passed to his advisers this week, that his security concerns can be addressed without claiming Greenland for the U.S.
One European diplomat told Axios:
Denmark is widely seen as one of the closest allies of the U.S. within the EU, and no one could have imagined it would be the first country with which Trump would pick a fight.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and her Greenlandic counterpart Múte Egede met on Friday in Copenhagen to discuss the situation.
In a press conference after the meeting Frederiksen said she asked for a meeting with Trump. Egede said he is also ready to talk to the president-elect.
Egede, an advocate for independence, said at the press conference:
Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic.
Sources said:
[T]he Danish government wants to avoid a public clash with the new U.S. administration, and asked members of the Trump team for clarification regarding what exactly the president-elect meant in his comments earlier this week.
The U.S. already has a military base on Greenland and an agreement with Denmark dating to 1951 on defending the island, under which an increase of U.S. forces could easily be discussed.
Greenland functions as a semi-autonomous enclave, where fewer than 60,000 native Danes actually live. Copenhagen controls its external functions—trade and security—but the Greenlanders govern themselves in all other aspects. By all outward appearances the Greenlanders do not want to become Americans, but they also do not want to remain under the Danes any longer either. They want independence, which is not in the interests of either the U.S. or Denmark.
The Danes want access to the Arctic resource troves, along with Russia, China, Canada, and the US. Otherwise, they might have already cut a deal with Trump in 2019 and left the political headache in Washington D.C., along with the identical headache of Puerto Rico and its much larger population demanding either statehood or independence.
Axios wondered whether the actual question is whether Trump:
[W]ould be content to cut a deal with Denmark and declare victory, or whether his true mission is to become the first president in 80 years to gain new territory for the U.S.
Even with that potential headache looming, Trump and his team still see Greenland as such a critical strategic issue that they are willing to bully an ally to secure it.
Having made the ‘outrageous’ demand and making it clear that the new administration will pursue it through all means necessary, Trump has at least forced the Danes into negotiations over any other means by which the new administration might be satisfied.
That is a step in the right direction for Trump, who may very well just want to ensure the U.S. has a monopoly on military access, given the obvious implications of Greenland’s proximity to the U.S. Or maybe all he wanted was to have the Danes take Greenland’s security more seriously. In which case, he may have had his wish fulfilled:
Denmark is increasing defense spending in Greenland, said a Danish official Tuesday who called the announcement’s timing with President-elect Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. should own the territory an ‘irony of fate.’
Further:
Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told the outlet Jyllands-Posten on Tuesday of plans to spend a ‘double-digit billion amount’ in krone, equivalent to at least $1.5 billion, on the self-ruled territory that’s part of its kingdom to ensure a ‘stronger presence’ in the Arctic. …
And:
Poulsen told Jyllands-Posten the Danish government’s plan for Greenland included long-range drones, more inspection ships and sled patrols in the territory and an upgrade to Kangerlussuaq Airport so it can accommodate F-35 fighter jets.
Poulsen concluded:
Denmark had not invested enough for many years in the Arctic—where countries including China and Russia have been racing for resources in the region that’s feeling the effects of climate change.
Granted, the above information does not seem like much at face value, however, President Trump has encouraged a dialogue. And just as he wants NATO countries to do, Denmark and Greenland both seem to have been encouraged to “boosting security in Greenland.”
