Via The Independent, the wording of a text sent by President Trump to the Norwegian prime minister:
Dear Jonas: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America. Denmark cannot protect that land from Russia or China, and why do they have a “right of ownership” anyway? There are no written documents, it’s only that a boat landed there hundreds of years ago, but we had boats landing there, also. I have done more for NATO than any other person since its founding, and now, NATO should do something for the United States. The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland. Thank you! President DJT
Well . . .
There is a lot to unpack in that text, but I will just confine myself to Denmark’s right to the island, which has been recognized by the U.S. for quite a while. For example, a declaration attached to the treaty under which the U.S. agreed to buy the (then) Danish West Indies in 1917 reads as follows:
In proceeding this day to the signature of the Convention respecting the cession of the Danish West-Indian Islands to the United States of America, the undersigned Secretary of State of the United States of America, duly authorized by his Government, has the honor to declare that the Government of the United States of America will not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.
The 1951 defense agreement between the U.S. and Denmark recognizes Danish sovereignty both explicitly and implicitly. Although the U.S. was given extensive control over the “defense areas” (American bases), that was “without prejudice to the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark over such defense area and the natural right of the competent Danish authorities to free movement everywhere in Greenland.”
The agreement was amended in 2004. The recitals at the beginning of the amendment include this:
Considering the development of Greenland since the conclusion of the Defense Agreement, including the change of Greenland’s status from colony to that of an equal part of the Kingdom of Denmark under the Constitution and the establishment of a wide ranging Greenland Home Rule;
Perhaps the most serious legal challenge to Danish rule (at least for the past century or so) came from Norway, which, mainly concerned with fishing rights, occupied part of the east of the island in the 1930s, naming it Erik the Red’s Land, a historically resonant name. Erik the Red was born in Norway around A.D. 950, but he moved to Iceland as a child, following his father’s exile from Norway after “a number of killings.” In due course, Erik was exiled from Iceland (murder, I’m afraid) and sailed west, discovered (and reputedly named) Greenland, and eventually founded two settlements there.
Despite this (and much else), the International Court of Justice ruled in Denmark’s favor in 1933. The whole of Greenland was theirs.
It still is.