Greenland pours icy water on Trump’s suggestion that the U.S. buy it

Greenland has quickly rejected the idea floated by United States President Donald Trump that his country should purchase the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

“Greenland is rich in valuable resources such as minerals, the purest water and ice, fish stocks, seafood, renewable energy and is a new frontier for adventure tourism. We’re open for business, not for sale,” Greenland’s foreign ministry wrote on Twitter.

That statement arose in reaction to a story that surfaced yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, which suggested Trump had raised the purchase of Greenland in discussions with his advisors.

“The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar to the discussion,” the newspaper said.

This prompted widespread mockery on Twitter, with singer and comedian Bette Midler saying “Trump wants to buy Greenland? Let him find it on a map first.”

Someone else posted an image of Nuuk with a tower featuring Trump’s name.

Greenland in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/akqWowauyu

— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 15, 2019

But it’s not the first time the U.S. has put out feelers to buy Greenland.

In 1946, Harry S. Truman, then the U.S. president, offered $100 million in gold for parts of Greenland.

Truman proposed the U.S. would trade land around Point Barrow, Alaska, for the parts of Greenland that the U.S. wanted for military purposes, AP reported in 1991, when some of the documents related to the exchange offer became unclassified.

Under this plan, Denmark would have received the rights to any oil discovered, but would have had to sell the oil to the U.S.

And in the past, Denmark has sold territory to the U.S. In 1917, Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the U.S.

Greenland has also previously cozied up to the Trump administration.

Shortly after Trump’s election in 2016, Vittus Qujaukitsoq, then Greenland’s foreign affairs minister, said that Greenland looked forward to working with the new U.S. administration, noting that Greenland has played an “important role for the U.S. in providing access to its land, sea and air territory for defence and scientific purposes.

Also in 2016, Qujaukitsoq spoke fondly of the period between 1941 and 1945 when Greenland became a U.S. protectorate after Denmark was conquered by Nazi Germany.

“The American period in Greenland is remembered as a period of great promise,” Qujaukitsoq said.

But politicians in Greenland and Denmark were quick to quash the idea of them joining the U.S.

In the Danish and Greenlandic media, they called the proposal an “April Fool’s joke,” “insane” and a “dead herring” that shouldn’t been be discussed when Trump comes to Denmark early in September.

Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, a professor at Denmark’s Defence Academy, suggested in the Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq that the attraction of Greenland is linked to its continuing military importance to the U.S.

The relationship goes back to back 1941 and an agreement between the U.S. and Denmark to protect Greenland during the Second World War.

“The agreement, after explicitly recognizing the Danish sovereignty over Greenland, proceeds to grant to the United States the right to locate and construct airplane landing fields and facilities for the defense of Greenland and for the defense of the American continent,” it read.

“The policy of the United States is that of defending for Denmark her sovereignty over Greenland, so that she may have a full exercise of it as soon as the invasion is ended.”

A renewed defence treaty signed by the U.S. and Denmark in 1951 granted the U.S. the right to build the Thule airbase in northern Greenland.

That agreement was renewed in 2004 when high-level officials from Greenland, Denmark and the U.S. met in the Greenlandic sheep-farming village of Igaliku to sign three deals, which would also allow the U.S. to move ahead with its missile defence program.

In Sermitsiaq, Rahbek-Clemmensen suggested China and Russia’s recent military actions have tightened the need for U.S. control of what is happening around the Thule air base and the planned construction of new airports in Greenland.

“It’s all about making sure they can’t make a surprise attack that puts the Thule base out of play,” he said. “To do that, you need to have some radars near Thule, and that you have some fighter aircraft ready at short notice to fight back a Russian attack.”