US President Donald Trump has said he wants to buy Greenland from Denmark and isn’t taking “no” for an answer.
Ilulissat, Greenland – In the Arctic town of Ilulissat, located beside an icy fjord in western Greenland, fisherman Joel Hansen says he is “terrified” by the possibility of a U.S. takeover of his home.
US President Donald Trump has said that Greenland will become part of the US “one way or another” and has not ruled out using military force to achieve that goal.
The Trump administration maintains that Greenland is geographically within the North American region and essential to U.S. security, but officials say the United States has an interest in the island’s vast mineral wealth as well.
Hansen, who is half Inuit and half Danish, has been fishing among the towering icebergs in the waters off Ilulissat for the past 14 years and says he would never change his life.
“I’m scared to be American,” he told Al Jazeera. “I’ve seen the Inuit in Alaska and how hard they live.”
Despite Greenland’s often difficult relationship with Denmark, which began colonizing the island in 1721, he says he is one of the residents who believes it might be better to be Danish after all.
“I love Greenland because when we are fishing, we are free to work for ourselves.”
rich in resources
Although Greenland gained “self-government” in 1979 and later gained greater autonomy through the 2009 Home Rule Act, it remains part of Denmark and therefore politically part of Europe. However, geographically it is located in the North American region.
Due to the island’s remote and poor location, its rich deposits of zinc, iron, uranium, and graphite are largely unexploited. But it is thought to contain the world’s eighth largest deposit of the coveted rare earth element.
Once processed, they have magnetic and electrochemical properties that are essential for manufacturing parts of modern technology such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, smartphones, missile systems, and fighter jets.
Military applications are of particular concern to the United States because China owns about 60% of the world’s rare earth elements and processes 90% of them, the report said.
Greenland itself has only two operating mines, but Greenlanders believe they can build their own capacity to process minerals. “Greenland is rich in minerals and could become a nation if it wanted to,” Hansen said. “We don’t need money from Trump.”
“We are completely different.”
The prospect of the US descending on Greenland for mineral extraction has terrified Inuit communities around Ilulissat. After the past two months of near-constant darkness during the polar nights, this week marked the return of sunrise.
“I hope Mr. Rubio brings some humanity to that meeting,” Inuit Greenlandic Karl Sundgreen, director of the Ilulissat Icefjord Visitor Center, told Al Jazeera ahead of Wednesday’s meeting in Washington between the Danish and Greenlandic foreign ministers with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance.
His concern is with the Inuit way of life. “We’re very different. We’re Inuit and we’ve been here for thousands of years. This is the future of my daughter and son, not the future of people thinking about resources.”
