For greater than a 12 months, US President Donald Trump has brazenly threatened to “take” the world’s largest island, Greenland, which is at present a semi-autonomous entity inside the Kingdom of Denmark. The threats appear to accentuate by the hour, and the state of affairs could effectively have worsened by the point you learn this.
I’m a member of the Danish parliament, the Folketing, and the international affairs spokesperson for Enhedslisten, the left-wing Pink-Inexperienced Alliance inside it. Our concern as a celebration is by no means over the way forward for continued “Danish rule” in Greenland. The 57,000 Greenlanders have an apparent proper to self-determination, and we assist their proper to form their very own future and determine their alliances.
As the previous colonial energy, Denmark carries a heavy burden of historic guilt and duty to help the Greenlanders in creating their very own democracy, sustainable financial system and imaginative and prescient for statehood.
Denmark should stand with Greenland towards exterior aggression and domination. It’s the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark that’s being threatened, and the fitting to self-determination of the folks of Greenland that’s being undermined. Trump isn’t on a path to liberate the Palestinians, the Venezuelans or the Greenlanders. He’s on a path of self-interest and management.
Trump’s intervention in Venezuela highlighted his full disrespect for worldwide legislation and state sovereignty. Silence on such blatant violations is sure to pave the best way for the following unlawful quest pushed by his or different autocratic leaders’ urge for food to overcome different international locations.
The bullies of this world don’t respect bootlicking and appeasement. And Trump is a bully. His actions must be met with a transparent “no” from any political chief who’s dedicated to sustaining a rules-based international order.
What the world witnessed in Caracas doesn’t bode effectively for different states that lie in any superpower’s self-declared sphere of curiosity. Trump, clearly, views each Venezuela and Greenland as a part of his “yard”, which he’s going to dominate, rule, and “run” — as a result of he can.
The US has no legitimacy or proper to take over different international locations. The truth that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s regime presided over a extreme financial disaster and was accountable for widespread poverty, oppression, and electoral fraud doesn’t in any form or kind legitimise Trump’s actions. Those that applaud and welcome the kidnapping of Maduro contribute to additional undermining the worldwide rules-based order and invite Trump and different cynical strongmen to do the identical — together with in Greenland.
The foundations-based international order that we used to know was based mostly on containing energy with authorized means, making certain the sovereignty of states, and defending folks from state abuse and oppression. If these established guidelines for worldwide peaceable coexistence usually are not defended and revered, they change into irrelevant — with incalculable penalties for peace and stability. But we all know that Western international locations have enforced them reasonably selectively. Israel’s colonisation and genocide in Palestine is a stark instance.
Washington’s new Nationwide Safety Technique clearly states that the US has the fitting to say its overwhelming political, financial, and army energy on this planet on the whole and the Western Hemisphere particularly. At his Mar-a-Lago press convention on January 3, Trump proudly referred to the “Donroe Doctrine” and outlined an strategy to international coverage geared toward defending US dominance from any conceivable problem. We, and the Greenlanders, have purpose to concern the results.
Solely dominant and autocratic powers with imperial ambitions, who eye different international locations and their assets greedily, will profit from the sort of world order that’s now evolving in entrance of our eyes. These powers need extra land to point out how massive and highly effective they’re. They take different international locations and their pure assets by pressure as a result of they’ll — and since we allow them to.
The result’s lawlessness – a world dominated by the legislation of the jungle the place “may is true” and the place all peoples in small and medium-sized international locations face growing insecurity.
The previous Danish colony of Greenland is a democratic nation at the moment with a totally professional political management within the type of a authorities, Naalakkersuisut, and parliament, Inatsisartut.
Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has repeatedly emphasised that he, his authorities, and the overwhelming majority of Greenlanders don’t have any want to change into US residents or in any means a part of the US.
As he said at a press convention in Copenhagen on January 13, “If we now have to decide on between the US and Denmark right here and now, we select Denmark”.
That is comprehensible, given the truth that the US has no common healthcare system and no increased training that is freed from cost, as Greenland has. The Greenlanders have, little question, additionally taken observe of the US’s dismal report with regards to the rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples such because the Native People or the Inuits of Alaska.
All of this is not going to cease Trump from “getting” Greenland via a mix of army, political, and financial threats and brutal coercion.
The safety state of affairs in Europe and in Greenland is way previous the purpose the place it is smart to stroll on eggshells or attempt to flatter Trump. That’s the reason the Kingdom of Denmark, the opposite Nordic international locations, and any nation in Europe and elsewhere that values the rules-based international order must reboot their strategy and perceive the necessity for strategic autonomy or independence from the US.
This includes a constant coverage of not procuring American arms, together with fighter jets, which, sadly, Denmark bought as soon as once more in 2025. It additionally means reducing ties with regards to intelligence cooperation and creating web platforms and media that may act independently of the US tech giants which can be at present kind of underneath Trump’s management. Now we have to guard our democracies.
Our get together calls on all progressive forces in Europe and around the globe to unite and mobilise in a joint wrestle for the fitting to self-determination and towards the US’s and different main powers’ imperial and neocolonial ambitions of reshaping the world.
We have to put strain on political leaders around the globe to maneuver away from appeasement and acquiescence in direction of the US and to insist persistently on worldwide legislation, the United Nations Constitution, and the fitting to self-determination.
That is the wrestle of our time.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
