COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Greenlanders voted in local elections on Tuesday under the shadow of US President Donald Trump’s threat to annex the autonomous Danish territory.
Trump argues that the United States needs the vast Arctic island for its security and has refused to rule out the use of force to secure it.
“We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 percent,” Trump said on Sunday in an interview with NBC News.
But the island’s new Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen shot back: “The United States will not get Greenland. We don’t belong to anyone else. We decide our own future.”
Despite Greenland making international headlines, the council elections have been dominated by local issues like health, housing, tourism development and mining.
Polling stations opened at 9:00 am (1000 GMT) and were set to close at 8:00 pm (2100 GMT). Results are expected from Wednesday.
Palle Jerimiassen, the mayor of Greenland’s third largest city Ilulissat, wished Greenlanders a “happy election” in a Facebook post.
Nielsen said last week he understood Greenlanders feeling “uneasy” over diplomatic tensions, criticizing US Vice President JD Vance for joining his wife Usha’s “private visit” to the island, whose destination was then changed to a US military base there on Friday.
Vance used the occasion to criticise Denmark for not having “done a good job by the people of Greenland.”
