Europe's hypocrisy in opposing US colonisation of Greenland

US President Donald Trump addresses reporters on board Air Force One as he returns from the World Economic Forum on January 22, 2026.  [AFP]

When Donald Trump initially floated the idea of the United States acquiring Greenland in 2019, European leaders reacted with a mix of ridicule and indignation. Danish officials called the proposal “absurd,” European media framed it as a grotesque throwback to 19th-century imperialism, and commentators warned darkly of American expansionism returning to the world stage. However, in his second term in office, Trump has proven that he was not, in fact, bluffing, and is serious about having Greenland under America’s possession for geopolitical or other reasons. This time around, the European Union and its members could not afford to rubbish President Trump’s words, and have instead opted to strongly condemn him in public, while soothing and cajoling him in private.

An initial look at Europe's actions would lead one to believe that the continent seeks only the freedom of Greenland from usurpation. However, Europe’s objection to Trump’s proposal was not rooted in a principled defence of Greenland's self-determination, nor in a rejection of imperial control over the island. The outrage emerged primarily because Trump’s proposal threatened European control over a strategic territory. To understand this, one must begin with Greenland’s actual political status. Greenland is formally an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. It has its own parliament and government, and increasing control over domestic affairs. Denmark retains authority over foreign policy, defence, and monetary matters. As well, Greenland’s majority population is composed of the Inuit people, who are an indigenous group in the Northern Hemisphere. Indigenous people, as we have witnessed over the centuries, are neither respected nor protected, and often exist in a colonised status. Canada, Australia and the United States are the most notorious for their treatment of the indigenous people that they found in the lands they conquered. The modus operandi has always been to destroy indigenous populations, and control what little is left after total destruction. Greenland's Inuit are no different.

As a consequence of these histories, many Greenlanders and scholars describe Greenland’s arrangement with Denmark as colonialism. Therefore, America gaining control of Greenland would be a case of, not an independent nation losing its sovereignty, but a colony changing hands from one coloniser to another. With this framing, it becomes clear why the EU is outrightly against Trump’s idea. This context matters because Europe’s response to Trump was not accompanied by a renewed push for Greenlandic independence. Its response to America was that Greenland was “not for sale”; it already has an owner who is unwilling to sell it.

This selective moralism is not new. Europe has long drawn a sharp distinction between “acceptable” imperial arrangements, and unacceptable ones carried out by rivals. Colonialism becomes outrageous only when it disrupts existing hierarchies of power. When it stabilises them, it is reframed as governance or historical complexity. Britain and France are emblematic of this ideology, with their multiple territories and outposts across the world. There is hardly a small island on the planet which Britain or France have not set their sights on.

Gaza is also testament of this selective outrage. One of the other plans that Trump and his administration have is turning Gaza into a resort city. At the just concluded Davos meeting, where Trump introduced the Board of Peace, which is made up of many of the same imperial powers that run the world, Jaren Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, presented his vision of turning Gaza into a shiny metropolis without facing objection.

Ultimately, the colonised and indigenous peoples must reckon with the fact that they are all pawns in the Empire's chess game. Conquest is tolerated only when it affects the Global South or any group of non-white people. Although the concept of Manifest Destiny is uniquely American, Europe appears to share the same ideology by continuing to occupy territories that are primarily non-white, and encouraging Trump to do the same through logical action, rather than denouncing colonialism entirely. European states routinely support interventions that limit the sovereignty of African, Middle Eastern, and Latin American countries, and the justification around these interventions is often based around the language of humanitarian necessity. But when a similar logic is applied closer to home, Europe suddenly rediscovers its anti-imperialist conscience.

Ms Njahira is an international lawyer