{"id":76665,"date":"2026-01-16T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=76665"},"modified":"2026-01-15T19:10:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T02:10:57","slug":"greenlands-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/greenlands-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenland\u2019s future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Greenland\u2019s<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, the foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland met behind closed doors with the American vice president and the secretary of state. Afterward, the Europeans described a \u201cfundamental disagreement\u201d over what the future of Greenland should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Trump keeps insisting the United States should take over the island, and they\u2019re not interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish foreign minister, told reporters he hoped the three governments could lower the temperature on the debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is actually the very first time where we could sit down at a top political level to discuss it,\u201d he said. He said he understood Trump\u2019s view that Greenland\u2019s future lies with America \u2014 or China or Russia. \u201cWe share, to some extent, his concerns,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a new security situation in the Arctic and the High North.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That morning, the White House had posted a cartoon on X showing Greenland\u2019s supposed paths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside it, Trump declared that anything less than U.S. control of Greenland was \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The view from Nuuk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does the saber-rattling play with the 57,000 people who live in Greenland?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not well, report Jeffrey Gettleman and Maya Tekeli, who traveled to Nuuk, the capital, to find out. They discovered a kaleidoscope of feelings: shock, anger, confusion, humiliation, insult and, most of all, fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one they spoke to wants Greenland to be recolonized, and very few have any interest in joining the United States. One told them she was well aware of the holes in this country\u2019s health care system and its gaping economic inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I talked to Jeffrey about that yesterday. He told me the people he spoke to hated the idea that officials thousands of miles away might decide their fate. And they are worried about changing the way they live:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People here enjoy a highly Scandinavian standard of living, which means free health care, free education and a strong safety net. At the same time, they value their traditions. I can\u2019t tell you how many people we\u2019ve met who still hunt seals and reindeer and love ice fishing and spending hours outside, with their sled dogs or on their snowmobiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeffrey had just talked to a Greenlander selling secondhand clothes and knickknacks on the street in Nuuk. \u201cTrump really wants it, he keeps saying he wants it, and if he comes what are we going to do?\u201d the guy told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he laughed. His name was Thue Norhsen. Jeffrey asked him if he wanted to become an American. \u201cI like the way things are,\u201d Norhsen said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to give that up.\u201d Jeffrey said it was a refrain he had heard in Greenland over and over again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A strategic hub<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration wants Greenland for a host of reasons, including its mineral resources, its size and its strategic location near Canada, Europe and even Russia via the Arctic Ocean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among other things, it\u2019s a good place to keep track of Chinese and Russian naval ships crossing new routes through melted ice. (It\u2019s also a good place, because it\u2019s so close to the North Pole, to track missiles.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NATO countries like the United States also use those routes and gather intelligence to counter Russia. Trump has repeatedly berated and coerced the organization, demanding that its member nations pay more for defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, his quest to take over Greenland, which as part of the Kingdom of Denmark is already under NATO\u2019s protection, has raised concerns that he will shatter the alliance itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump said yesterday that NATO \u201cshould be leading the way for us to get\u201d Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That view came with an implied threat: Without American military power, \u201cNATO would not be an effective force or deterrent \u2014 Not even close!\u201d he wrote on social media. \u201cThey know that, and so do I. NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what if Trump seizes the island by force? Then NATO has a different problem. Its founding treaty holds that an attack on one ally in the organization \u2014 in this case, Denmark \u2014 is an attack on all. An attack on all brings the obligation for each NATO member to respond, though not always with armed force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the nearly eight decades of the alliance, no NATO ally has ever attacked another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n