Perhaps you would be interested in spreading the truth about Denmark and Greenland – particularly in view of the propaganda disseminated by the likes of Fox News.

The fundamental fact is that Greenland is not a colony but an integral part of The Unity of The Realm, which includes Denmark proper, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. All inhabitants share the same rights and are Danish citizens. All can freely settle where they want, vote in elections and stand for Parliament.

Greenland and the Faroes enjoy the unique privilege of being guaranteed two members each of the Danish parliament, where the Greenlanders sometimes cast the decisive votes when choosing a government.

Several Danish governments have declared that it is up to the Greenlanders if they want to cut ties with Denmark. They will meet with no opposition. All it takes is a phone call to Copenhagen.

There is, however, a strong incentive for Greenland to remain part of The Unity of the Realm, namely the fact that Danish taxpayers supply the island with half of its GDP and has done so for years. Without this support, Greenland could not maintain its welfare state. Any idea that Denmark is somehow taking economic advantage of Greenland is ludicrous.

It has been claimed in parts of the American media that the government in Copenhagen tries to impede Greenland’s economic development. It is rather the other way around. It is Greenland’s home rule government that will not accept the extraction of the island’s mineral ressources, and why should they when they can expect north of four billion kroner from Denmark per year?

Trump is right to point out that tiny Denmark cannot militarily defend the world’s largest island. But there is nothing to prevent The United States from doing so. In fact the US has for many years had a military base in northwestern Greenland, and if the Trump government wants more bases or maritime installations, Denmark would welcome it with open arms. And if American companies would want to invest in the extraction of Greenland’s natural ressources, that too would meet with no complaints in Copenhagen, which retains control of Greenland’s foreign policy.

It is consequently hard to find a justification for Donald Trump’s demand that he take over Greenland, unless the objective is to humiliate Denmark – one of America’s oldest allies.

And, by the way, the Norse attachment to Greenland goes back a thousand years – to a time when Norse settlers came to southwestern Greenland, which had been unihabited. So in a sense the Norsemen could be called one of Greenland’s indigenous peoples.