Is there an actual fear that the US will seize Greenland by force? There are much more desirable properties we probably could have nabbed since 1945 and did not.
> "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity."
It seems like a blatant threat to me, although I cannot make any logical sense of the logic of the sentence. I am curious who wrote it (big words and good grammar rule out Trump) and why.
The Danish position here is actually quite incomprehensible.
They have not been good stewards, and in fact they seem to despise the actual inhabitants of Greenland. (All ~50k of them.) See, e.g., this forced eugenics campaign: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_case
Life expectancy in Greenland is extremely low, at 70.06 years (average) -- 68.09 years for males. This is poor even by third-world standards. Similarly frosty Iceland has a life expectancy of nearly 83 years, and similarly colonized French Polynesia is at 84.
Pointedly, the Danish have made no effort to actually settle Greenland or utilize the resources everybody keeps talking about.
It's not well-run, not well utilized, and really the Danes ought to be ashamed of the state of things.
At the same time, they're throwing billions of dollars into Greenland-oriented subsidies and military spending, all of which serves no obvious Danish interest.
They ought to cut it loose. And then if the US wants to make the free and sovereign inhabitants an offer -- which could be quite generous -- I think it may very well benefit all involved.
The media's portrayal of Trump's offer makes him look bad, but, as things stand, it's truly the Danes who come off seeming schizo and vaguely evil.
Well, one might say the same about USA. Bad health care, bad education, bad infrastructure and a lot of spending on military.
On that note, I read a satire news article that Denmark was offering to buy the US without the government so they can bring education and good healthcare to the US.
You mention healthcare twice. Let's think about this.
The poorest US state is Mississippi, and its life expectancy is an outlier -- far below the national average and half a year shorter than any other state. Yet the average Mississippi lifespan of ~73.38 years (in 2021) is nevertheless substantially higher than the life expectancy in Greenland.
Also: The colony of American Samoa, despite having some of the heaviest people on Earth, has a substantially better life expectancy than Greenland.
So maybe you guys have good healthcare in Denmark, but the inhabitants of Greenland clearly aren't benefitting from it. This, again, speaks to bad stewardship.
Could it be that a lot of the inhabitants are Inuit? I could imagine they refuse modern health care, similar to Amish people in the US? A quick google search shows an average life expectancy for Amish people to be 71.
Greenland is not to be manged for utilized by Denmark. Greenland is independent in that regard.
You point it out quite well youself: Denmark attempted to manage Greenland, and withdrew these efforts as Greenland is not Denmarks to own.
Currently Denmark subsidize Greenland by roughly 1bil usd a year - many Danish people would probably enjoy to have that liability lifted off their shoulders.