Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand and Governor General Mary Simon are reportedly planning a visit to Greenland early next month to open a new Canadian consulate, in a show of Ottawa’s opposition to President Donald Trump’s move to acquire Greenland for the United States.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at the Canadian embassy in Paris on Tuesday, where both were attending a meeting on Ukraine. Carney declared Canada’s support for Denmark’s sole authority to decide the fate of Greenland.
Anand posted a video of the Carney-Frederiksen meeting on social media and said she would be on hand to open a new Canadian consulate in the Greenland city of Nuuk next month, as a “concrete step in strengthening our engagement in support of Denmark’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Greenland.”
The Canadian government is relying heavily on Simon’s presence in Nuuk to get the diplomatic mission taken seriously. Simon is Canada’s first governor general of indigenous descent, and was the ambassador to Denmark before she became governor general in 2021. Greenland’s sparse population includes a large portion indigenous people, most of them Inuits. Simon’s mother was Inuk, while her father was English.
Simon’s position also makes her a representative of British King Charles III, who is officially the Canadian head of state, adding a bit more international clout to her prospective trip to Greenland. She said on Monday that Prime Minster Carney personally asked her to make the trip.
Carney on Tuesday signed a joint statement with Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom declaring that only Denmark and the people of Greenland should “decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
The statement took a careful tone, urging all of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to work together on Arctic security, including the United States, Denmark, and Greenland. The statement hailed the United States as “an essential partner in this endeavor, as a NATO ally and through the defense agreement between the Kingdom of Denmark and the United States of 1951.”
European and Canadian leaders rushed out their joint statement after President Trump restated his “very serious” desire to acquire Greenland, although he said he had “no timeline” for doing so. Fredericksen panicked and warned that if Trump uses force to annex Greenland, it would destroy NATO.
By Monday, both sides of the controversy had taken a more relaxed tone. The White House said there are no plans to use force to annex Greenland, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Trump wants to purchase Greenland from Denmark – an ambition that would not be incompatible with the Canadian-European declaration on Monday, assuming the government of Denmark and people of Greenland both agreed to the sale.
Much of the lingering anxiety comes from Trump’s refusal to “rule out” the use of force to take control of Greenland, which he views as a vital national security interest of the United States. Even the latest White House statement on Tuesday noted that “utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief’s disposal.”
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