{"id":681315,"date":"2026-01-08T03:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/681315\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T03:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:10:10","slug":"greenlanders-express-fear-and-indignation-as-trump-eyes-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/681315\/","title":{"rendered":"Greenlanders express fear and indignation as Trump eyes territory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greenland is the world’s most sparsely populated territory. With much of the Arctic island covered by ice, most of the population lives in Nuuk and the surrounding south-western coastline.<\/p>\n

But it is strategically significant to the US – which is why it has had a military presence there since World War 2. <\/p>\n

Greenland’s location between North America and the Arctic makes it well placed for early warning systems in the event of missile attacks.<\/p>\n

More recently, there has also been increased interest in Greenland’s natural resources, including rare earth minerals, which are becoming easier to access as its ice melts due to climate change.<\/p>\n

“It’s not fun being 56,000 people and having these threats – if you can call them that – from a giant like the US,” says Masaana Egede, editor of Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq.<\/p>\n

“The citizens of Greenland are nervous about this, because this is not something that we take lightly.”<\/p>\n

Experts generally agree<\/a> that a military takeover of Greenland would be an easy undertaking for the US – but that the geopolitical fallout would effectively end the Nato alliance.<\/p>\n

After the issue of Greenland’s ownership was raised anew by the White House, six European allies issued a statement<\/a> saying its future should be decided by its people – something Mia says she is grateful for.<\/p>\n

But she worries this will matter little to the US “if it’s not backed with consequences and actions”.<\/p>\n

“As a Greenlander, I can’t help but wonder: what are we worth to these allies? To what lengths are they willing to go to protect us?”<\/p>\n

Tupaarnaq says: “Respect is about more than alliances on paper. When powerful nations talk about you instead of with you, that respect disappears very quickly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Greenland is the world’s most sparsely populated territory. With much of the Arctic island covered by ice, most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":681316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-681315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115857288259086485","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/681316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}