Greenland's likely new prime minister rejects Trump takeover efforts

Source: The Guardian

Thu 13 Mar 2025 16.54 EDT
Last modified on Thu 13 Mar 2025 17.02 EDT


Greenland’s probable new prime minister has rejected Donald Trump’s effort to take control of the island, saying Greenlanders must be allowed to decide their own future as it moves toward independence from Denmark.

Jens-Frederik Nielsen, whose centre-right Democrats won a surprise victory in this week’s legislative elections and now must form a coalition government, pushed back on Thursday against Trump’s repeated claims that the US will annex the island.

“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders, and we want our own independence in the future,” Nielsen, 33, told Sky News. “And we want to build our own country by ourselves.” Greenland’s outgoing prime minister, Múte Egede, said he would convene a meeting of party leaders to jointly reject Trump’s threats, warning: “Enough is enough.”

“This time we need to toughen our rejection of Trump. People cannot continue to disrespect us,” Egede wrote on Facebook. Egede continues to lead Greenland while a new government is formed. “The American president has once again evoked the idea of annexing us. I absolutely cannot accept that,” he wrote.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/13/greenland-new-prime-minister-jens-frederik-nielsen