In brief
With an imminent summit in Washington, Greenlanders express their concerns over U.S. intentions towards their island. As the U.S. Vice President convenes discussions with Danish and Greenlandic officials, the local population voices a desire for sovereignty and caution against unwanted foreign influence. The stakes are high, not just for Greenland's future, but also for the dynamics of global geopolitics.
It's crunch time. The US Vice President, JD Vance, is hosting the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers, as well as their US counterpart, Marco Rubio, in the White House on Wednesday.
The focus of the talks: the future of the world's biggest island, Greenland.
There is a large digital news ticker tape running above the snow-covered shopping mall in the island's capital, Nuuk. You don't have to speak Greenlandic to understand the words Trump, Greenland and sovereignty that appear over and over again, in stark red letters.
Donald Trump says he wants this country and he'll take it the easy way or the hard way. After his recent controversial military action in Venezuela, people in Greenland are taking him at his word.
The anxious countdown to the Washington meeting has been going on for days. Passers-by tell me it feels like years. I would like to encourage (Donald Trump) to use both his ears wisely, to listen more and to speak less. We are not for sale. Our country is not for sale, Amelie Zeeb said, removing her chunky mittens, traditionally made here with sealskin and known as pualuuk, in order to wave her hands for emphasis.
My hope is for our country to be independent and well-managed and not be bought, said Inuit writer and musician, Sivnîssoq Rask.
While Maria, with her seven-week-old baby, wrapped snugly inside her winter coat, told me, I worry for the future of my young family. We don't want all this attention here! But international attention on Greenland is not going to disappear anytime soon.
Far more hangs in the balance than the fate of this island alone. The tussle over Greenland pits Nato nations Denmark and the US against one another. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. The Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that if the US takes control of the island by force, it would mark the end of the transatlantic defense alliance that has been a cornerstone of European security for decades.
As Trump prepares for the meeting, leaders from both sides must decide if they wish to pursue cooperation, or allow tensions to escalate further in a geopolitical landscape where the stakes are extraordinarily high.
