What’s With Trump and Greenland?

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

Incoming U.S. president Donald Trump insists he want to buy the world’s largest island, Greenland, from Denmark. He said “ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity” for U.S. national security.

Trump added that Greenland and its people “will benefit tremendously if, and when, it becomes part of our nation. We will protect it, and cherish it, from a very vicious outside world.” He also posted a video featuring an unnamed Greenlander telling Trump to buy Greenland and free it from “being colonised” by Denmark.

Is Trump serious? Delirious? Or is there method in this madness?

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, is heading for Greenland, two weeks after his father repeated his desire to take control of the autonomous Danish territory.

Greenland has wide-ranging autonomy, but its economy is largely dependent on subsidies from Copenhagen and it remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

It does lie on the shortest route from North America to Europe, making it strategically important for the U.S., and is also home to a large American space facility.

In response, Danish King Frederik X changed the royal coat of arms to more prominently feature representations of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. He used his New Year’s address to say the Kingdom of Denmark was united “all the way to Greenland,” adding “we belong together.”

But do they? Some have seen this as a rebuke to Trump, but it could also prove controversial with Greenland’s sovereigntist movement. The island’s prime minister, Mute Egede, used his own New Year’s speech to push for independence from Denmark, saying it must break free from “the shackles of colonialism.”

So the Danes are caught between the U.S. and the Kalaallit Nunaat – the indigenous name for Greenland -- nationalist movement. Most of the island’s population of 57,000 people are Inuit.

In the early 17th century, Danish and Norwegian explorers reached Greenland. When Denmark and Norway separated in 1814, Greenland was transferred to the Danish crown and was fully integrated in the Danish state in 1953, which made the people in Greenland citizens of Denmark.

In a 2008 referendum, they voted for the Self-Government Act, which transferred more power from the Danish government to the local Greenlandic government.  Under this structure, Greenland gradually assumed responsibility for a number of governmental services and areas of competence. The Danish government retains control of citizenship, monetary policy, and foreign affairs, including defence.

Does Trump know all this? Maybe not. But this may really be a bargaining ploy. What he’s really doing is embarrassing Denmark, along with many other NATO members, for not pulling their weight in the alliance. Danish defence spending as a per cent of GDP is about 1.65 per cent – below the two per cent NATO considers necessary, and which Trump demands of all its member states. And it’s working.

Not coincidentally, the Danish government announced a huge boost in defence spending for Greenland, hours after Trump repeated his desire to purchase the Arctic territory.

Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the package was a “double digit billion amount” in krone, or at least $1.5 billion. “We have not invested enough in the Arctic for many years, now we are planning a stronger presence,” he stated. He described the timing of the announcement as an “irony of fate,” but no one believes that.

It would also include funding for increased staffing at Arctic Command in the capital Nuuk and an upgrade for one of Greenland’s three main civilian airports to handle F-35 supersonic fighter aircraft.

Army Major Steen Kjaergaard of the Danish Defence Academy suggests it may have been Trump’s intention to pressure Denmark into such a move. “It is likely to be sparked by the renewed Trump focus on the need for air and maritime control around Greenland and the internal developments in Greenland where some are voicing a will to look towards the U.S. -- a new international airport in Nuuk was just inaugurated,” he told the BBC.

“I think Trump is smart. He gets Denmark to prioritise its Arctic military capabilities by raising this voice, without having to take over a very un-American welfare system,” Kjaergaard added, referring to Greenland’s heavy dependence on subsidies from Copenhagen.

So is Trump crazy, or crazy like a fox? Call it the “Trump Effect.”