Cnn
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Elections GreenlandAn island house at around 57,000 people are generally a local business.
There is little questioning opinion, with only two newspapers on Danish autonomous territory. The Greenlanders are thinking about politics in private Facebook groups, with key problems in the past centered on the economy, mining, the fishing law and of course, its relationship and its history with Denmark.
But while the Greenlanders go to the polls on Tuesday, the idea of US President Donald Trump Annex the nation threw this year’s elections under international projectors.
Speaking of Greenland in his speech at Congress last week, Trump said: “I think we are going to get it in one way or another” – reviving the fears that the United States is trying to take the island by force or economic coercion.
Prime Minister Pro-independence of Greenland, Mute Egede, replied: “We are not for sale and we cannot simply be taken.”
“We don’t want to be Americans or Danes; We are Kalaallit (Greenlandic), “said Egede. “Americans and their chief must understand this.”
In fact, the five parties in the Greenland Parliament said they did not want the territory to be part of the United States. Their key divisions focus more on economic, social and environmental policy than Trump’s statements.
The dominant parties on the political spectrum of Greenland all agree on the desire for independence, with many parties, including the Democratic Party in the power of Egede Inuit Ataqatigiit, considering it as a long -term project, requiring years of negotiation with Denmark and an additional economic improvement.
Denmark directed Greenland as a colony until 1953, when the island obtained greater powers of autonomy. Then, in 2009, he won more powers concerning minerals, police services and lawyers. But Denmark still controls security, defense, foreign and monetary policy. Greenland also benefits from the European Union of Denmark and NATO members.
This is an open question what the future security of Greenland will look like if it votes to break. Some politicians have floated to establish a post-independence defense treaty with Denmark, Canada or even the United States, which already has a military base in the Arctic Circle in northwest Greenland.
The future security of the island is particularly important because Russia and China are competing for a greater influence in the Arctic.
During almost all elections in recent years, politicians have promised to take action to achieve autonomy. However, none of them offered a concrete chronology.
But Trump’s aggressive position has actually given the Arctic nation more negotiation power with Denmark, according to analysts, and kicked the movement of independence at high speed.
Independence is not on the voting bulletin for Tuesday elections, but the other partner of the Bipartite government coalition in Greenland, the Siumut party, said that it was planning to hold a referendum on independence during the next electoral period. The main opposition party, Naleraq, campaigned to break links with Denmark faster and wishes to conclude a defense agreement with the United States.
Greenland organizes elections every four years, with 31 seats in the Parliament at stake.
Without a reliable electoral poll, analysts hesitate to predict whether the left coalition in the power of Egede will win again.
“Whatever the result, there will be speed, there will be a turbo on the issue of independence,” an analyst and former advisor to Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt told Reuters News.
Greenland’s influencer and candidate for Greenland for Naleraq, Qupanuk Olsen, told Reuters: “I firmly believe that all this interest in Trump and the rest of the world definitively accelerates our Times 100 independence process.”
Meanwhile, in the middle of the influx of international attention, the Greenland Parliament prohibited the political donations of foreign persons and anonymous donors last month.
Danish intelligence services announced that they were actively monitoring foreign powers attempts to interfere in the elections, citing China, Russia and the United States as potential falsification powers.
With several numbers at stake, “it has never been so important to mark a ballot,” wrote journalist Tôrtia Reimer-Johansen for the weekly newspaper of the country Sermitaq.
“The Greenlanders felt trapped”
A key problem is how complete independence could be carried out and if it is economically viable, since Greenland receives around 20% of its annual GDP each year from a Danish block subsidy – more than $ 500 million. This represents about half of the island’s public budget.
The Greenlanders also have Danish passports, health care and other Nordic advantages of the welfare state.
Analysts claim that any independence referendum would probably take years to implement and require long exit exit negotiations.
“The Greenlanders felt trapped, not only constitutionally, but also in terms of relationship, in particular economic relations,” said Ulrik Pram Gad, principal researcher focused on Green Danism Relations at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
With the current status quo “they unilaterally depend on income and subsidies from Denmark,” GAD told CNN. “They want to diversify their dependence, you could say, to have more options.”
While Greenland politicians have repeatedly reported that they are not interested in annexation, they are open to milking with the United States for the exploitation of rare land, the expansion of tourism, stronger diplomatic connections and other investments.
Trump said on Sunday in a social networks: “We are ready to invest billions of dollars to create new jobs and make you rich,” he added, inviting Greenland to become “part of the United States.
Greenland is rich in oil and gas, as well as Rare land metals in high demand For electric cars, wind turbines and the manufacture of military equipment.
“They are really impatient to dig someone, but they want to be sure they A piece of the cake“Added Gad.
“Under the current Danish Constitution and the law on government autonomy, Greenland is in charge of minerals. They can dig up and export what they want, but Denmark is in charge of security. It is a kind of dead end, in this sense that, if you dig up something that is a security problem, which must then decide? “He said.
This question has come to the foreground in recent years, since China has dominated world production of rare land and has already threatened to restrict the export of critical minerals, before Trump’s second term. An expert previously told CNN that Trump’s desire for Greenland “is really to keep China outside. “”
Beyond the security and foreign policy issues, Nuuk’s relationship with Copenhagen was also fraught with allegations of historical misconduct and colonial oppression Indigenous Inuit Greenlandish.
The nation has been shaken in recent years by a birth control scandal, after having been revealed that Denmark has installed many Greenlandic girls with an intrauterine (IUD) apparatus in the 1960s and 70s without the permission of girls or their parents, as a means of control of the population. Prime Minister Egede recently described the “genocide” birth control campaign.
And this electoral cycle also exposed frustration in the face of allegations according to which Denmark took advantage of a large cryolite mine on the west coast of Greenland from 1854 to 1987 – operating the region without benefiting from the inhabitants.
An opinion from the University of Greenland Survey conducted in spring 2024 – months before Trump launched ideas to control the island – noted that more people considered security threat to be raised compared to 2021. The survey also enlightened opinions on Greenland’s desire for greater international cooperation, the inhabitants claiming that their favorite partners were Iceland, Canada and the Arctic Council.
Even again, those questioned in 2024 said that the greatest challenges for Greenland were the economic situation, the cost of living and unemployment.
These points of view almost certainly moved in 2025, because Trump argues that control of Greenland is vital for American national security and refuses to exclude military force.
But the election is intrinsically unpredictable. The main problems of Greenlander’s mind can only become clear when results Start pouring local polling stations in the early hours of Wednesday.
