US President Donald Trump has fired another salvo in the ongoing Greenland saga, this time targeting Canada for allegedly opposing his ambitious “Golden Dome” defense shield.
Trump wrote on the Truth Social platform: “Canada is against The Golden Dome being built over Greenland, even though The Golden Dome would protect Canada. Instead, they voted in favor of doing business with China, who will ‘eat them up’ within the first year!”
The criticism came amid broader negotiations over Greenland’s future security arrangements, in which Trump has repeatedly tied US control of the autonomous Danish territory to the Golden Dome project.
Earlier this month, Trump indicated that deploying parts of the system was part of talks with NATO allies and Denmark.
The Golden Dome is Trump’s ambitious push for a multilayered defense shield that would cover the entire North America, including Canada. Inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome, the Golden Dome could include next-generation radars, ground-based interceptors, and space-based sensors to counter missile threats emanating from Russia or China.
Trump has argued that Greenland’s strategic location, with its existing US Pituffik Space Base, is critical for early warning radars, tracking stations, and possibly interceptor sites to protect the entire continent.
Trump has long called Greenland paramount for US national security. In recent weeks, the US President dialed back from using military means to seize Greenland after reaching a “framework” deal with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte at Davos.
Just as European powers have, Canada has consistently supported Greenland and Danish sovereignty over it. Canadian PM Mark Carney has pushed back against some of Trump’s demands, urging respect for international laws and alliances.
Denmark Soldiers Were Ready To Fight?
Danish soldiers deployed to Greenland were ordered to be combat-ready in case the US military attacked the territory, Danish public broadcaster DR claimed.
Earlier, Trump had not ruled out the use of force, insisting that the US needed Greenland for “national security”.
DR reported that a Danish military order stated that soldiers in Greenland should be armed with live ammunition. Copenhagen also drafted a multi-phase plan that included the possibility of dispatching additional soldiers and assets, if required.
Civilian and military aircraft then began transporting soldiers and equipment to Greenland, according to DR.
The deployment was officially a part of the Danish-led military exercise Arctic Endurance — which Copenhagen has said will continue “throughout large parts of the coming year.”
A few days after Trump announced that the US would get Greenland “one way or the other”, eight European countries sent several dozen troops to Greenland, officially to prepare for the exercise.
Some have since departed, including a group of about 15 Germans and some Swedes, while others continue to arrive.
DR also reported broad political support, from both the Danish government and the opposition, to take up the fight in the event of a US attack. Speaking to reporters Friday, Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen declined to comment on the report.
Meanwhile, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen flew into Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, for talks with the Prime Minister. The visit comes right after a wild week that saw Trump finally back off from his threats of seizing Greenland and reportedly agreeing to renegotiate the 1951 Greenland defense agreement.
Greenland & Denmark: Troubled History
Greenland and Denmark have formed a united front to face down US President Donald Trump, temporarily setting aside their troubled history.
The Arctic island, a Danish colony for three centuries, still has a complicated relationship with Denmark, which now rules it as an autonomous territory.
Greenland’s main political parties all want independence, but disagree on how exactly to get there. Trump’s designs on the island led them to forge a coalition government in March last year.
Greenland’s leaders made clear last week they had no interest in Trump’s bid to take over the vast island — an idea he pushed hard, before backing off on Wednesday after reaching what he called a framework deal on Arctic security with NATO’s secretary-general.
“Greenlanders still have a lot of grievances concerning Denmark’s lack of ability to reconsider its colonial past,” said Ulrik Pram Gad, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
“But Trump’s pressure has prompted the wide majority of the political spectrum that forms (Greenland’s) coalition government to put independence preparations — always a long-term project — aside for now,” he told AFP.
“The clear European support has made this easier in the sense that the relation to Denmark feels a lot less claustrophobic when joined by others,” he added.
While the main Greenland parties differ on how to achieve independence, the growing US pressure led them in March 2025 to set aside their differences and form a coalition.
Only the Naleraq party, which wants a fast-track to independence, remained in opposition.
At the height of the crisis, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen made it clear that if the government had to choose between the United States and Denmark, it would choose Denmark.
Colonial Past
Trump’s talk of a framework deal negotiated with NATO chief Mark Rutte prompted Denmark and Greenland to reiterate that only they can make decisions concerning them.
In the last month of diplomatic back-and-forth, Greenland and Denmark have presented a united front, speaking with one voice.
On January 14, Greenland’s Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt was in Washington alongside her Danish counterpart Lars Lokke Rasmussen for talks with US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
By Monday, she was in Brussels for talks with Rutte, this time with Denmark’s Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen.
But that unity conceals the scars of their colonial past.
Greenland was a Danish colony from the early 18th century. It became a Danish territory in 1953, a full part of Denmark — before becoming an autonomous territory in 1979, a status that was strengthened in 2009.
“It’s a long history. It has gone through different stages,” said Astrid Andersen, a specialist in Danish-Greenlandic relations at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
“Any colonial relation is a question of domination, and there have been some injustices committed.”
Those injustices include a 1951 social experiment in which 22 Inuit children were forcibly separated from their families and prevented from speaking Greenlandic — part of a bid to create a Danish-speaking elite.
In 2021, the six who were still alive each received compensation of 250,000 crowns (33,500 euros).
Another dark chapter was Denmark’s efforts from the 1960s onward to reduce the birth rate in Greenland.
Several thousand women and teenagers — at least 4,000 — had IUDs fitted without their consent to prevent them from conceiving.
Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has presented her apologies to the women concerned — nearly half of whom were unable to have children — and a compensation procedure is underway.
Denmark’s social services even used controversial psychological tests to — as they saw it — evaluate if Greenlandic mothers were fit to be parents.
A 2022 study showed that in metropolitan Denmark, children born to Greenlandic families were five to seven times more at risk of being placed in children’s homes than those born to Danish families.
The use of such tests was only discontinued last year.
The recent debate over these issues has, for the moment, been put to one side, said Andersen.
“Right now, I think there’s a general agreement with a few exceptions that the common opponent right now is Trump, and we kind of need to face this together somehow.”
Via: Agence France-Presse & ET Online Desk
