US will not ‘get’ Greenland, island’s new PM says

Icebergs float in the water off Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

COPENHAGEN — Greenland will decide its own future and the autonomous Danish territory will not become part of the United States, its new prime minister said on Sunday, responding to Donald Trump’s latest comments about wanting the resource-rich island.

“President Trump says the United States ‘will get Greenland.’ Let me be clear: The United States will not get Greenland. We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post.

“We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent”, Trump said on Sunday in an interview with NBC News.

READ: 4 reasons why the US might want to buy Greenland – if it were for sale

This latest exchange culminates a week of heightened tensions between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland, marked by Vice President JD Vance’s visit to a US military base on the vast Arctic island.

Danish diplomacy on Saturday criticised Vance’s “tone”, after he said Denmark “has not done a good job by the people of Greenland”.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen will be in Greenland from Wednesday to Friday to “strengthen unity” between the kingdom and its Arctic territory.

READ: US VP JD Vance to visit Greenland as Trump ups pressure

Four of the five parties represented in the Greenlandic Parliament reached an agreement on Friday to form a coalition government.

Greenland’s main parties all want independence, but they disagree on the roadmap. American pressure convinced them to form a coalition as quickly as possible with only the Naleraq party, which advocates rapid independence, declining to join.