Expert: The U.S. has failed miserably at winning Greenlandic hearts

By Elías Thorsson March 28, 2025
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Protesters take part in a a demonstration march ending in front of the U.S. consulate, under the slogan, Greenland belongs to the Greenlandic people, in Nuuk, Greenland, March 15, 2025. Christian Klindt Soelbeck/Ritzau Scanpix/via REUTERS 

The U.S. strategy of winning over the Greenlandic population as a first step toward taking over the country has failed miserably, according to Mikkel Runge Olesen, senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).

“They’ve been horribly bad at it. They are further from winning over the Greenlanders than they were when they started three months ago,” Olesen told radio program P1 Morgen.

Still, he doesn’t see the U.S. delegation’s cancellation of its visits to Nuuk and Sisimiut—in favor of a stop at Pituffik Space Base—as a Danish or Greenlandic victory.

“I think it’s far, far too early to say that. We may very well be facing a situation where J.D. Vance takes the stage and says some quite nasty things about Denmark. When you send someone like him, it would almost be strange if there weren’t a sharp rhetorical attack on Denmark.”

“So the question will be whether he’s coming all the way just to say bad things about Denmark—or whether the U.S. is actually adjusting its position on Greenland and Denmark,” said Olesen.