A party that has sharply criticized President Donald Trump's threat to take over Greenland secured a surprise election victory Tuesday in the Danish territory, but it may have to govern with a partner with a far warmer view of the U.S. president.
The center-right, pro-business Demokraatit party, which favors a gradual move toward independence from Denmark, won 30% of the total vote share, not enough to single-handedly rule the Arctic territory. The party will instead need to partner with opponents to form a coalition.
Foremost among those other parties is the second-placed opposition party Naleraq, which won a quarter of the vote share, favors rapid independence and has reserved warm words for the Trump administration.
The victory of two parties who favor independence — seceding from Denmark is broadly popular in Greenland — may be taken as a positive in Washington, where interest in the world's largest island has sharply jumped since President Trump began his second term.
Greenland won the right to hold a referendum to gain full independence from Denmark in 2009, but a poll at the time also found that many were divided on the pace at which to do so. Greenland currently is in charge of its own domestic affairs, while Denmark controls decisions on foreign and defense policy.
"We don’t want independence tomorrow, we want a good foundation,” the Demokraatit leader and incumbent prime minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen told reporters Tuesday night in the capital, Nuuk.
Trump sees Greenland's vast mineral wealth and existing U.S. military base as being of strategic importance as the Arctic region opens up and increasingly comes into play in the geopolitical arena, but both Nuuk and Copenhagen have rebuffed those overtures.
“We need Greenland for national security. One way or the other we’re gonna get it,” Trump told Congress during an address last week.
Those comments directly oppose those of Nielsen, who during Tuesday's vote told NBC News international partner Sky News that he wanted the vote to send “a clear message to him that we are not for sale.”
“We don’t want to be Americans. No, we don’t want to be Danes. We want to be Greenlanders. And we want our own independence in the future. And we want to build our own country by ourselves, not with his hope,” Nielsen added.
But the White House may have found a kindred spirit in the main independence party, Naleraq. Social media influencer and Naleraq candidate Qupanuk Olsen previously told Reuters that “I strongly believe all this interest from Trump and the rest of the world is definitely speeding up our independence process times 100.”
Speaking about Trump at an election watch party in Nuuk on Tuesday, Naleraq party member Kuno Fencker told Reuters that “he respects our right to self-determination. ... If he wants to invest in Greenland, he is absolutely welcome to do that.”
While the vast majority of Greenlanders support independence, they remain opposed to Trump’s overtures, according to a January poll commissioned by the Danish newspaper Berlingske and Greenlandic daily Sermitsiaq.
Even so, analysts say that the secessionist platforms of both parties may create an opening for greater U.S. influence.
The two parties will likely “try to get more investments” out of America’s interest in the island, Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, told NBC News before the vote on Monday.
“A big victory for the Naleraq Party will be seen as a victory for Donald Trump,” he added.
Former Prime Minister Múte Egede called an early election in February amid Trump’s comments that acquiring Greenland was vital to security interests.
“We are in the midst of a serious time. A time we have never experienced in our country,” he said at the time in a post on Facebook.
When news that his party had secured the largest voting share began to filter through, Nielsen said at an event in Nuuk that “people want change. ... We want more business to finance our welfare,” according to Reuters.
The key difference between the two parties is that Naleraq's main goal is rapid independence from Denmark, Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the London-based think tank Polar Research and Policy Initiative, told NBC News in a statement Wednesday. "For Demokraatit, it is more of an end goal,” he added.
Bolstered by American interest in mineral wealth, Naleraq has pushed for a referendum in the next four years and aims to strike a secessionist deal with Copenhagen.
With a coalition not yet agreed upon, the impact of the vote remains unclear for both the Trump administration and Greenland's 56,000 citizens.
