Alicia Kearns MP (left) in Greenland this month (Image: Supplied )
I can assure you, you will hear far more about Greenland in the next 20 years than you have in the last 20. That is not by accident. It is geography, and geopolitics. President Trump has revived his ambition for the United States to own Greenland. Despite hopes that he had stepped back, after four days in Greenland I can assure it would be naïve to believe Trump’s interest in Greenland has diminished. Why should that matter to you? As the ice recedes, new trade routes are opening across the top of the world. For Trump, and us, there is a dual threat to our security: China and Russia. As what was once an impenetrable frozen frontier becomes a navigable passageway between continents, China and Russia will seek to occupy this space to secure economic and security advantages.
Unlike us, they’re ready and waiting, planning for this eventuality. We are sorely behind. Beyond the waterways global economies will all seek to benefit from, there’s also critical minerals. Greenland holds significant reserves of rare earth elements and other strategic resources. These are the minerals that power our security and our every day lives. At present, China dominates the processing and supply chains of rare earths but in Greenland we have a partner who could, in decades to come, help break that stranglehold reshaping the balance of economic power globally.
Read more: Greenland tensions explode as Denmark hit out at Trump’s ‘boat’ plan – ‘no need’
Read more: Trump’s five reasons for wrecking Chagos deal as he spots Starmer’s weakness
Alicia Kearns (second from right) in Greenland this month (Image: Supplied )
But beyond strategy and minerals, what struck me most was the people. The vast majority of the island is covered by ice. During my visit I did not see a single tree.
Communities are scattered along the coastline overwhelmingly located around fishing opportunities, and a growing yet still modest tourism sector. There are no roads linking settlements. If you want to visit another town, you fly or sail.
We met a young man whose parents had undertaken a 12-hour round trip that day simply to fish for cod. The Speaker of the Greenlandic Parliament spoke with us on Monday and then boarded his small boat to sail himself home, a seven-hour boat journey to his family. That is daily life here: endurance, resilience, and self-reliance. It is this geological reality which shapes the Greenlandic people, they have a deep relationship with their land as the only way to survive, is to be in partnership with the ice and the mountains.
Greenland remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark, yet enjoys significant self-rule with its population of just 56,000 people. Its indigenous people have been treated shamefully over the last few decades. Roughly half of all women and girls, some as young as 12, had IUDs inserted without their consent when the Danish Government decided it would “control” Greenland’s population.
Women were not told what was being fitted, or why, we met one young man who shared with us that his mother was one of the women forced to have an IUD inserted with no idea what it was. Inuit children were separated from their families and sent to Denmark for social experiments, adopted or to be put in boarding schools away from their families and divorced from their culture. Settlements were emptied.
Then there are the so-called “legally fatherless” children, where if a mother was Greenlandic and the father Danish, he was not recorded on the birth certificate.
*** Ensure our latest news headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings. ***
Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP for Rutland and Stamford (Image: Getty )
These injustices are not relics of the 18th century. Some occurred as recently as 1975. I feel visceral anger at these crimes committed against Greenlanders, and yet the Greenlandic people are not defined by grievance. They are passionate about their future, protecting their culture and people, and increasingly determined to chart a path towards independence.
Where does Greenland go now?
Frankly my dear, I fear the US doesn’t give a damn about the views of Greenlanders. That is precisely why Britain, alongside our NATO allies, must stand firmly behind the principle that Greenland is not for sale, nor to be annexed. The Greenlandic people do not wish to be owned by anyone.
However, supporting Greenland does not mean hostility to the United States, it means offering constructive avenues for cooperation that respect sovereignty while strengthening collective security. My main takeaway from my time in the arctic is that there is more common ground than rhetoric suggests.
Both Greenland and President Trump have shared ambitions for a low-tension Arctic. Both want to nullify malign Chinese and Russian influence. Both see potential in critical minerals – though Greenlanders are rightly wary of what I would call an extract and exit model which would scar their precious land.
Crucially, deeper security co-operation is absolutely on the table. Focusing on what unites is the path to stability. The same is true for us, as the United Kingdom our interests in the Arctic are not abstract. They concern our trade routes and critically our security. Together we can work together and create a package of defence and trade agreements which would benefit Greenland, the US and wider Europe.
It is an opportunity Greenland can grasp, albeit whilst making clear their sovereignty is non-negotiable.
The Arctic may feel remote, and Greenland a distant land, but we should all sit up and pay attention, because its future will shape ours, and our security demands it.