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United States President Donald Trump’s comments threatening to take over Greenland have left one of its residents living in Saskatchewan worried for the territory.
Dr. Karla Jessen Williamson, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan, is from the autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
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“It’s unexpected,” she said. “(A) big surprise, but his insistence to do that is just something else.
“There’s been lots of reactions against it, internationally speaking, and yet he just persists on taking over Greenland.”
Jessen Williamson said her friends and family have expressed feelings of bewilderment about Trump’s comments to take over the country.
“It’s like, wow, what the heck is that about? That’s the reaction that people have,” she said.
The issue is complicated, Jessen Williamson said, because many of the bodies involved with Greenland’s security are bound by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union to keep peace with the United States.
“Trump’s actions and his announcements have been most unusual … it’s a very single-minded, single-focused ideas that he has about taking over Greenland against the advice of so many international bodies,” she said.
This is likely the first time NATO is experiencing “this kind of kerfuffle” with a nation getting “nasty” within security agreements, according to Jessen Williamson.
While speaking at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Trump said he wants to take possession of the rights, title, and ownership of Greenland, but clarified he wouldn’t use force to take over the territory.
Greenland has a large Indigenous population of Inuit people.
Karla Jessen Williamson with an attendee at the Second Step conference in Ilulissat. The conference was about Greenland looking at possibilities to become an independent nation state. (Karla Jessen Williamson/Submitted)
While people on the land have Danish citizenship, Jessen Williamson said many want their Indigenous status to be recognized.
Jessen Williamson said Inuit people have the land and mineral rights in the territory.
“Inuit in Greenland have imagined to be independent from Denmark in near future, but all of this has been sort of crushed by the insistence of Trump wanting to take over Greenland,” she said.
There is a lot of pressure and “deep anxieties” on the territory’s population, Jessen Williamson said.
“Better days will arrive and better days would be that of keeping the rights of the land and rights of the resources and for people to continue their lives,” she said.
“Holding on to languages and cultures and ways of life and supporting one another. That’s a big, big hope that people have.”
— with files from 980 CJME’s Nicole Garn and The Canadian Press.
