ACCORDING TO DANISH tradition, Santa Claus – or “Christmas Man”, as he’s known here – doesn’t hail from Lapland in Finland. Instead, he comes from Greenland.

When I moved from Kildare to Copenhagen in 2021, this little piece of trivia was about the height of everyday observations about Greenland. The world’s largest island and former Danish colony rarely, if ever, came up as a topic of daily conversation. A lot has changed since then.

In 2025, when US President Donald Trump revived his idea that America should buy Greenland, many Danes dismissed the proposal as bluster. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen dubbed it “absurd” (a “nasty” thing to say, according to Trump). Greenlanders protested that the island was not for sale. More than 200,000 people reacted by signing a humorous petition suggesting that Denmark should buy California.

Fast-forward to this week and the mood in Denmark is much more sombre. Trump’s renewed statements that America should control Greenland are being taken seriously, especially after the US intervention in Venezuela. Suddenly, the thought of Trump capturing Nuuk without the consent of Denmark or Greenland — which both fall under the Nato military alliance — doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

The Danish government has been in crisis mode all week. The prime minister has been scrambling to shore up support from European leaders to stop Trump. A special meeting on Tuesday night saw foreign minister and political force Lars Løkke Rasmussen try to cool the temperature. He and his Greenlandic counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, desperately want dialogue with the United States and are eager to meet secretary of state Marco Rubio.

Many Danish commentators argue that there is no need for the US to be so aggressive in its stance. They point to a 1951 defence agreement that already gives the States extensive rights to maintain and expand a military presence in Greenland. If the US is so concerned about security threats, it could just do that without any........

© TheJournal