Greenland, the vast Arctic island in the North Atlantic, and Denmark, the European country that still oversees it, have recently spoken with one voice in response to pressure from United States President Donald Trump.
Although Greenland was ruled by Denmark for centuries and remains a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, the two sides have set aside long-running grievances for now as Washington’s interest in the island grows, Okay News reports.
Greenland’s leading political parties all support eventual independence, but they disagree on how quickly it should happen and what steps should come first. The rising external pressure linked to Trump’s public interest in Greenland helped push most of the political spectrum to form a coalition government in March 2025, temporarily putting their independence arguments on hold.
Last week, Greenland’s leaders again made it clear they were not interested in any attempt by the United States to take control of the island. Trump had repeatedly floated the idea in recent weeks, but later eased his stance after saying he had reached a framework agreement on Arctic security with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Ulrik Pram Gad, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said Greenlanders still have deep complaints about Denmark’s handling of its colonial history. He added that Trump’s pressure has pushed most coalition partners to pause independence preparations, which are already seen as a long-term project.
Even with their differences, the main parties chose to cooperate in government, while the Naleraq party, which supports a faster route to independence, stayed in opposition.
During the height of the political tension, Greenland’s Prime Minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said that if Greenland ever had to choose between the United States and Denmark, it would choose Denmark.
After Trump spoke about the NATO framework discussions, Denmark and Greenland repeated that decisions about their future can only be made by them, not by outside powers.
In the past month, both governments have coordinated their messaging closely. On Wednesday, 14 January 2026, Greenland’s Foreign Minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, travelled to Washington, United States, alongside Denmark’s Foreign Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, for talks with United States Vice President JD Vance and United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
By Monday, 19 January 2026, Motzfeldt was in Brussels, Belgium, for discussions with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, this time joined by Denmark’s Defence Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen.
However, the public unity does not erase the difficult history between Greenland and Denmark.
Greenland was a Danish colony from the early eighteenth century. It became a Danish territory in 1953 and was treated as a full part of Denmark, before gaining home rule as an autonomous territory in 1979. That autonomy was expanded further in 2009.
Astrid Andersen, who studies Danish-Greenlandic relations at the Danish Institute for International Studies, said the relationship has passed through several stages over time. She noted that colonial systems often involve domination and can include serious injustices.
One of the most painful episodes was a 1951 social experiment in which 22 Inuit children were taken from their families and discouraged from speaking the Greenlandic language, as part of an effort to build a Danish-speaking elite. In 2021, the six survivors were each awarded compensation of DKK 250,000, which was reported as about €33,500.
Another major controversy involved Denmark’s efforts from the 1960s and for about three decades after to reduce Greenland’s birth rate. Several thousand women and teenage girls, at least 4,000, were fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs) without consent to prevent pregnancy.
Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has apologised to the women affected, many of whom later struggled to have children, and a compensation process is now underway.
The tension also extended to Denmark’s social services, which used disputed psychological tests to decide whether Greenlandic mothers were fit to raise their children. A 2022 study found that in Denmark itself, children born to Greenlandic families were five to seven times more likely to be placed in children’s homes than children born to Danish families. The use of those tests was only ended last year.
Despite the recent public debate around these issues, analysts say the argument has been pushed into the background for now, as Greenland and Denmark focus on what they see as the more immediate challenge from Washington.
“Right now I think there is a general agreement with a few exceptions that the common opponent right now is Trump and we kind of need to face this together somehow,” Andersen said.
