Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
Credit: Reuters Photo
The United States will not take control of Greenland, the island's new prime minister said Sunday in response to President Donald Trump's latest assertion that he wants to annex the territory.
"President Trump says that the United States 'will get Greenland,'" Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, who was sworn in Friday, said on social media. "Let me be clear: The United States will not get it. We do not belong to anyone else. We decide our own future."
On Saturday, Trump had told NBC News: "We'll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 per cent."
In an interview with the network, Trump said he "absolutely" has had real conversations about annexing the icebound island, a semiautonomous territory that has been connected to Denmark for more than 300 years.
While there was a "good possibility that we could do it without military force," Trump added, "I don't take anything off the table."
Trump's escalating talk of seizing Greenland reflects an expansionist mindset in his second term. His administration has also threatened to annex Canada and the Panama Canal.
Nielsen, who at 33 is Greenland's youngest prime minister, was sworn in on the same day that a US delegation led by Vice President J D Vance arrived on the island. The territory's political leaders had seen the trip as an aggressive escalation of Trump's threats to seize the territory. Some officials complained about the timing of the visit, pointing out that it came just after Greenland held parliamentary elections.
Vance took a softer tone on his trip than Trump, saying that the United States would respect Greenland's right to self-determination and that using military force -- which Trump has refused to rule out -- would not be necessary.
But the island's government had not invited Vance or the others in his group, including his wife. The US national security adviser and the energy secretary were also on the trip. And Greenlanders resisted his overtures when he arrived.
The US delegation's itinerary changed after an earlier announcement was met with a backlash. Initially, Usha Vance, who had been expected to visit without the vice president, had planned to attend a dog sledding race in southern Greenland. But the organizers of the race made clear they had not invited her. And the outgoing prime minister, Mute B Egede, said in an indignant statement that there would be no meetings between US and Greenlandic officials.
Protests had been planned in Nuuk, the capital, where Usha Vance was originally scheduled to visit, before that part of the trip was scrapped.