After US President Donald Trump's Greenland acquisition comments, Greenlanders see an opportunity to advocate for more self governance, while 85% oppose joining US.
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00:00Greenland's independence movement believes Trump's recent claims to take over the semi-autonomous
00:11Danish state is an opportunity for native Greenlanders to push for full sovereignty.
00:17Polling over the last few days show 85% of Greenlanders oppose joining the U.S.
00:24Kupanuk Olsson is Greenland's biggest influencer with 1.6 million followers, many of them in
00:30the United States.
00:31She says her culture, the Inuit, have survived over a thousand years of harsh conditions.
00:37She's not afraid of Trump's bellicose rhetoric.
00:40I have chosen not to be afraid.
00:44I have chosen not to be scared.
00:47We just have to figure out how to do the best dance with Trump.
00:53How can we make the best deals out of this?
00:57It's very colonial mindset when you think when Denmark no longer has Greenland, U.S.
01:04will just take it.
01:05And it's just like colonizers talking with another colonizer mindset.
01:11It's like we are human beings.
01:12So while Greenlanders say they don't want to be part of the United States, it doesn't
01:16necessarily mean that they want to be closer to Denmark either.
01:19I think what Greenland is really going for is self-independence in terms of government
01:33and all that.
01:34So it's really great that Denmark supports Greenland in terms of financial and economically.
01:38But I can see why the U.S. would be interested because they're obviously very much interested
01:44in the geopolitical positioning that Greenland is in and all the materials that they can
01:49acquire in terms of getting better military equipments and such.
01:54Those who want independence believe doing a deal with the U.S. while also having good
01:58relations with Denmark and Europe is the best way forward.
02:03You have to admit that he has done a lot of good for our independence course.
02:07In what way?
02:09Well, whenever Trump is not in office, people don't care about Greenland.
02:13You're here for a reason.
02:16So we get the opportunity to explain what is going on in Greenland and trying to explain
02:22that we're not isolationists.
02:23We want to work with the rest of the world, not just Denmark.
02:27The same polling says 84% of Greenlanders want their homeland to be independent from
02:32Denmark, yet half of that only if it doesn't have a negative impact on their standard of
02:37living.
02:38Shona Murray, Euronews, Nuuk, Greenland.