Greenlandic politician and co-founder of the territory’s liberal Cooperation Party, Tillie Martinussen, has thanked European countries for standing behind the island as it faced down takeover threats from US President Donald Trump.
“I have to say the Greenlandic people are so grateful to all our European allies as well as Canada. They have really stepped up in this question here and we have seen them learning from past mistakes. And I think that’s wonderful. We’re very, very happy with the European Union as it is right now and Europe as a whole,” she said in an exclusive interview with Euronews Romania.
In recent weeks, Trump said the US must take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, citing its strategic importance for national security.
Those demands almost brought the transatlantic alliance to collapse, particularly after he threatened punitive tariffs on European countries that rallied around Greenland.
On Wednesday, Trump suddenly backtracked on those demands, opting instead for a long-term deal on Arctic security brokered by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
“We’re seeing Mark Rutte saying that we have to ramp up security and that’s easy to do because people are already doing it. I mean, both Denmark and Greenland has invested a lot already in improving the Arctic security. So if that’s what he wants, we’re already doing it,” Martinussen told Euronews Romania.
Trump also claimed without proof that the US had to protect Greenland from alleged takeover threats by China and Russia, something Martinussen said she had seen no evidence of.
“I have to say that China was out and saying, don’t you use us as a threat right now. We’re not a threat. And they haven’t been everything that we have heard, like intelligence. There have not been any Chinese warships in Greenlandic seas for at least 10 years. So that’s a little crazy,” she said.
“Of course, we do have Putin on the other side that we don’t like here in Greenland as well. What is remarkable about all of this is the way that Donald Trump is talking about Greenland. He was also actually saying Iceland. So, it’s very confusing to hear him talk about us. I’m not even sure he knows exactly what’s going on.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said her country was willing to discuss matters related to Greenland with the White House as long as its sovereignty was off the table, something she pointedly described as a “red line.”
“He (Trump) was saying we were not even a country, we’re not even a land, we’re just a big block of ice and of course everyone here is insulted but we’re kind of getting used to that a little bit,” Martinussen said.
“We’re sovereign people. We’re in a nation that has been here for hundreds of years. We’re going to be here hundreds of years after Donald Trump is in office. It’s very insulting to hear someone talk about us like this.”
NATO chief Mark Rutte and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen agreed on Friday that the alliance should boost work on security in the Arctic region, after Trump walked back on his threats to seize Greenland.
“We’re working together to ensure that the whole of NATO is safe and secure and will build on our cooperation to enhance deterrence and defence in the Arctic,” Rutte wrote in a post on X after meeting Frederiksen in Brussels.
Frederiksen, who is set to travel to Greenland to meet its prime minister on Friday, said “we agree that NATO should increase its engagement in the Arctic.”
“Defence and security in the Arctic are matters for the entire alliance,” she wrote on X.
Details of what, if anything, was agreed have not been made public but officials say NATO boosting security in the Arctic was part of the plan.
Frederiksen said on Thursday that NATO allies agreed on the need for a “permanent presence” in the Arctic, including around Greenland.
Members of the alliance have floated setting up a new NATO mission in the Arctic, but commanders say concrete planning has yet to start.
Officials familiar with Rutte’s talks with Trump said that Denmark and the United States would look to renegotiate a 1951 pact governing American force deployments on Greenland.
“We have a much lighter mood at the moment, but it has actually been sort of a little lighter ever since France and England, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and of course Canada has been stepping up and saying, look, if we’re going to see a new world order, we’re going to a new world orders,” Martinussen told Euronews Romania.
“I’m so saddened that a lot of kids who have grown up in Greenland now are going to think that America is an aggressor and not to be trusted, but I’m also very happy that actually the new heroes are going to be Emmanuel Macron and then the Canadian prime minister because of the way that they talked in Davos yesterday.”
