{"id":295108,"date":"2026-01-21T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/295108\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T03:17:11","slug":"whats-greenland-really-worth-to-denmark-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/295108\/","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s Greenland really worth to Denmark? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

One good way of categorising US<\/a> overtures on Greenland<\/a> \u2013 and Danish<\/a> pushback \u2013 is deja vu all over again.<\/p>\n

For two of its three centuries inside the Danish kingdom, the Arctic island has been coveted from Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

In 1832, US president Andrew Jackson\u2019s administration made the first pitch to buy the island from Denmark, following the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida from France and Spain respectively in 1803 and 1819.<\/p>\n

It was a No then and a No a century later, when this news brief appeared in the Financial Times: \u201cIn reply to repeated rumours in the foreign Press the Danish Premier, M. Staunin, again categorically states, \u2018Greenland is not for sale.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s more energetic overtures from Donald Trump<\/a>, though, have revived a controversial question: what has Greenland ever brought Denmark? <\/p>\n

\"TrafficTraffic on a snow-covered street in Nuuk, Greenland. Photograph: Sean Gallup\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Even in its days as a colony, most Danes agree there was no bounty of resources from Greenland. Today, many admit quietly that Danish perceptions of the island have parallels to how many English view Northern Ireland: a territory few have visited, to which few feel attached, a place they would happily see go away.<\/p>\n

Others in Copenhagen, asked about Greenland, recall a now-deceased Danish politician\u2019s description of the island as \u201cAfrica on ice\u201d: full of potential, never fully realised.<\/p>\n

In particular Greenland\u2019s undisputed mineral riches \u2013 now an obsession of US billionaires \u2013 is a century-old Fata Morgana.<\/p>\n

\"GreenlandSource: Government of Greenland, Nature, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, American Action Forum <\/p>\n

On August 29th, 1924, an unnamed Irish Times correspondent in Copenhagen wrote that the government there \u201cis planning a systematic investigation of the mineral riches of Greenland, in the hope of being able to locate quantities of copper, coal and black lead in sufficient bulk to make mining profitable\u201d.<\/p>\n

A century on, the mineral riches remain in the ground because no one has yet found a way to get them out easily or profitably.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Derek Scally in Nuuk: Greenlanders prepare for crisisOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0‘Make America go Away’: The red hat that’s all the rage in GreenlandOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

[\u00a0‘With Irish people I feel understood, a connection’: In Greenland, talk of US takeover is deeply triggeringOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Even if the mineral wealth remains out of reach, Danish officials argue that its colonial history gives Copenhagen a sense of responsibility for Greenland \u2013 reflected in bankrolling a fifth of the annual budget.<\/p>\n

Besides that, Danish analysts see the island, larger than western Europe, as an outsize equivalent to Ireland\u2019s bowl of shamrock every St Patrick\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cGreenland has never been a source of economic wealth but has been a way to get attention in the White House,\u201d said Rasmus Sinding S\u00f8ndergaard, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. <\/p>\n

In recent years, amid growing overtures from Washington, S\u00f8ndergaard urged Danish politicians to revisit arrangements with the US, in particular security concerns. Offer military concessions to Trump, he suggested, maybe even a flashy visit with King Frederik to seal the deal. None of that happened. Why not? <\/p>\n

S\u00f8ndergaard thinks his rational arguments were eclipsed by emotion and sentiment, in particular a \u201cDanish self-perception of being this tiny country but having a larger role in the world through Greenland\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA sign reading ‘Greenland is not for sale’ hangs in the window of a Nuuk clothing shop. Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

What Danish officials are learning now, he says, is what happens when good attention goes bad.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Greenland has always been an ambivalent attention-getter in Washington.<\/p>\n

In 1868, three decades after the first No from Copenhagen, US secretary of state William Seward \u2013 who had negotiated the purchase of Alaska from imperial Russia a year previously \u2013 urged a move on Greenland to secure its \u201cvast fisheries and extensive coasts and numerous harbours, especially with abundant good coal\u201d. Again: No.<\/p>\n

In 1903, president Theodore Roosevelt instructed his ambassador in Copenhagen to tell the government of his interest in taking Greenland, because \u201cPrussianised Germany might at any moment seize that little country\u201d. The Danes said no.<\/p>\n

But US fears were realised three decades later and the US descended on Greenland to drive back Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

\"PassengersPassengers disembark from an Air Greenland flight arriving from Copenhagen at Nuuk Airport. Photograph: Jonathan Nackstrand\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Postwar agreements between Washington and Copenhagen gave the US huge freedom to establish a military and strategic foothold on Greenland. It did so during the cold war, before winding down all but one of its 17 bases.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Trump security demands, for some, echo the refrain of Arctic explorer and US navy officer Robert E Peary 110 years ago: \u201cGreenland belongs to North America and the Western Hemisphere, over which we have formally claimed a sphere of influence\u201d.<\/p>\n

When it comes to Greenland, Danish analyst Ulrik Pram Gad, senior researcher, Danish Institute for International Studies, his home land\u2019s self-regard may, in hindsight, have been a blind spot in the growing stand-off with Washington.<\/p>\n

Having Greenland allows Denmark \u201creaffirm its self-understanding and international image as a good global citizen\u201d, argues Gad, \u201ca perfect coloniser selflessly building a welfare state for the indigenous Greenlander without killing anyone\u201d.<\/p>\n

For analyst S\u00f8ndergaard the question of what Denmark gets out of Greenland is one for another day and of secondary concern now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is no longer about Greenland and Denmark but our rules-based order and the principle that might doesn\u2019t make right and that small countries can stand up for themselves in a conflict,\u201d said S\u00f8ndergaard. \u201cIt is no longer about what Denmark stands to lose if Greenland moves away but what would that signal for the world we live in and our alliance. Now this is a much bigger fight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One good way of categorising US overtures on Greenland \u2013 and Danish pushback \u2013 is deja vu all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,382,356,13,14,17768,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,384,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-295108","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-denmark","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-greenland","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115930925913086838","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}