– Nikolai Petrovsky –
As became abundantly clear following Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the newly elected U.S. president’s remarks about his plans to annex Greenland—currently under Danish sovereignty—were mistakenly dismissed by some European politicians as a joke. Any lingering doubts regarding the seriousness of the current White House leader’s intentions were dispelled after his recent phone conversation with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. With complete disregard for his female counterpart, Trump once again declared, with what he calls “the frankness of a Roman,” that Greenland must become American in the interest of “protecting the entire free world.” And that was that.
It seemed that such a pronouncement had cast a storm cloud over the homeland of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. However, a new development has arisen — one that the Danish authorities may cling to like a drowning man clutching at straws in an attempt to maintain the status quo regarding Greenland.
It has come to light that there is a country that, regardless of Washington’s wishes, holds a priority right to acquire Greenland should it ever be put up for sale. That country is the United Kingdom, as reported recently by The Sunday Times, citing Tom Hoim, who served as Denmark’s Minister for Greenlandic Affairs from 1982 to 1987.
According to Hoim, more than a century ago, in 1917, a special agreement regarding Greenland was signed between the two kingdoms — Denmark and Britain. Under its terms, if Denmark were ever to sell Greenland, it would first have to offer the United Kingdom the right of first refusal. Thus, “if Trump were to attempt to buy Greenland, he would first have to ask London. After all, as far back as 1917, the United Kingdom insisted that, in the event of a sale, Britain would have the right of first acquisition,” The Sunday Times quotes Hoim as saying.
As the newspaper explains, the 1917 deal in question was part of the negotiations surrounding U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s purchase of the Danish West Indies, now known as the U.S. Virgin Islands. The United States bought them from Denmark for $25 million.
Interestingly, at the time, some businessmen strongly advised Wilson to buy Greenland as well, but he initially refused, seeing no value in such a purchase. By the time he was finally convinced of its strategic importance, Copenhagen was unwilling to include Greenland in the deal for the Danish West Indies. The Danish authorities also demanded written assurances from the United States that Greenland would remain Danish forever, and Wilson provided such guarantees.
“This means that the United States officially recognized Greenland as Danish territory — permanently. But it seems Trump has never heard of this,” the former Danish Minister for Greenlandic Affairs remarked.
It will be interesting to see how Trump reacts to this historical review and its conclusions, which cemented the status of U.S.-Danish relations concerning Greenland. On the surface, this appears to be a political deadlock. However, we can safely assume that the current White House leader will show little regard for the “royal agreements” between Britain and Denmark from a century ago, as well as the guarantees President Wilson once gave to the Danes. What matters to him is the present, and today, he calls U.S. ownership of Greenland an “absolute necessity.”
It is unlikely that any of the remaining European monarchies in the Old World will be able to successfully resist Trump’s determination. Unless, of course, he changes his mind…
(Translated by NEPH from the Russian original in Pravda, No. 10 [31647])