French President Emmanuel Macron continued his intervention into the matter of Greenland on Wednesday, pronouncing that the Arctic island is neither for sale nor for the taking.
Despite Greenland not being a member of the European Union, President Macron has taken an outsized interest into the ongoing dispute between Copenhagen and Washington, in an apparent attempt to appear tough against U.S. President Donald Trump on the world stage and avoid the domestic issues ravaging France.
On Wednesday, the French leader hosted Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and the Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen at the Élysée Palace in Paris.
Still bespectacled behind the infamous aviator shades he debuted last week in front of the world at Davos, Mr Macron declared in Greenlandic that the island is not up for grabs.
“Greenland is neither for sale nor to be taken. The Greenlanders will decide their future,” Macron said in the Inuit language, according to Le Figaro.
The French president further said that the recent row between the United States and Denmark, during which President Trump pressed the Danes to hand over sovereignty of their North American colonial outpost, represented a “strategic wake-up call for all of Europe.”
For her part, Danish PM Mette Frederiksen thanked Macron for “defending the fundamental values we share and on which we cannot compromise,” and for the “very concrete contribution of France” in strengthening Arctic security.
Greenlandic PM Nielsen also expressed “gratitude” to Paris, saying: “You stood by us in an extremely difficult situation… in Greenland, we will not forget.”
France was among several European NATO allies to deploy troops to Greenland this month. While they were cast as ordinary training exercises, the timing was clearly interpreted as a rebuff of President Trump and, therefore, the United States.
In response, President Trump accused the allied nations of playing a “very dangerous game” for having “journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown.” He then announced that America would impose tariffs of up to 25 per cent if the situation was not resolved by June.
Such tariffs were never put in place, however, with President Trump saying that they would be put on hold while negotiating terms of a plan put forward by NATO chief Mark Rutte. The plan would reportedly be similar to the agreement between the UK and Cyprus, in which Britain is given permanent sovereignty over areas of the country for military bases.
Such a deal would avoid the need for Denmark to cede sovereignty over the island while still providing a base of operations for the United States to launch its planned Golden Dome missile defence system and to mine rare earth minerals without the intervention of the green-minded Danes or Greenlanders.
It remains to be seen if Copenhagen and Nuuk would agree to such a framework, however, with both nations stressing their devotion to the “territorial integrity” of the island.
Over the weekend, the United States Ambassador to the Untied Nations, Michael Waltz, vowed that President Trump will not wait until Russia and China are on the “doorstep” of America to act.
“President Trump is going to do what it takes to defend the American people, even when our allies are ignoring these glaring threats.”
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