Greenland’s historic opportunity
I became captivated by Greenland a quarter of a century ago. My first trips took me to the area where oil exploration is now under way, north to Scoresby Sund. The world’s largest national park lies there, about nine times the size of Iceland. We hired dog sleds and, with help from polar bear hunters, set up camp on the high plateau, where we stayed for eight days. No one had made the effort to climb the peaks before, let alone ski the slopes: the plateau is no hunting ground, since the animals keep to the coast.
Since then, I have sailed Scoresby Sund, the largest fjord in the world, and joined an expedition that found traces of a settlement about 500 years old deep inside the fjord. Inuit had lived there, but their existence was known only from oral tradition. We used satellite images to find our way, as Greenland’s base mapping is very limited. Much of Greenland remains unmapped.
Greenland’s position has changed fundamentally over this quarter century. Greenlanders now have a real opportunity to leave their colonial history behind and take responsibility for their own affairs. That opportunity does not depend on who guarantees the country’s defence; geography has answered that question since 1941. It depends on whether Greenlanders can create the conditions for lasting investment. Icelanders have an unusually important role to play here. Not because we know better, but because we are already one of the most active foreign actors in the Greenlandic economy, and because we went through the same transformation ourselves. I propose two things.
First, Iceland should lead work on a free trade agreement between Greenland, Iceland and the United States. Second, Iceland should offer, at the request of Greenlanders and on their terms, the experience that proved most valuable to Iceland itself: institution-building and a framework for property rights, a property and land register, and predictable rules for resource licences. That expertise exists within Icelandic institutions, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs (utanríkisráðuneytið) should offer it. Neither proposal requires new institutions.
For half a century Iceland has been the east coast’s key link to the outside world. Icelandic airlines have served the communities there for nearly 50 years through the airport at Nerlerit Inaat, formerly Constable Point. The only village left in the area today is Ittoqqortoormiit. Its history is a sad one. Inuit families were moved north to found it, not least to secure Danish colonial control of East Greenland against Norwegian claims in the early 20th century. The ship carrying the people and the building materials for their houses struck a skerry and broke its rudder. That is why the village stands where it does today: at the mouth of the world’s largest fjord, where the winds have free rein, rather than inside it. The population has declined steadily since I first went there. Hunters who once could sell furs and hides (from polar bears, musk oxen, seals and walruses) now have nothing left to sell, as international bans and regulations have choked the trade.
During an earlier commodity boom, around 1970, expeditions were sent to Greenland’s east coast to explore what could be found there. Some activity followed, but it had ceased by 1990. Exploration in the area has picked up in recent years. The east coast is very remote. Ice sets in at the end of August, ports are ice-free for little more than two months a year, and the ice sheet makes flights to the west coast unreliable. The best connections therefore run through Iceland, though only 6% of Greenland’s population lives on the east coast.
Leaving home
In 2010 I travelled with the novelist and environmental activist Andri Snær Magnason to Nuuk and Maniitsoq on the west coast to talk with local people about Alcoa’s plans for an aluminium smelter on Maniitsoq Island. We did not think it would benefit the area to bring in about 2,600 people during construction, almost all of them men, to a place with just under 2,800 residents who worked mostly in fishing. We could not see how the profits from aluminium production would stay in the community, or how revenue from the operation would strengthen the public finances. In my view, the investment I advocate is better for Greenlanders in terms of ownership, taxation, local involvement and profits that stay in the region.
In parliament, at the national broadcaster and at public meetings, you could feel how deeply Greenlanders longed for independence. Among the people I met there was Vivian Motzfeldt. She has since held a number of senior offices, including Speaker of Greenland’s parliament and minister of education and of foreign affairs, and has supported the independence cause throughout her career. Her party colleague at the time, Aleqa Hammond, became leader of Siumut, historically Greenland’s dominant party, in 2009 and put independence at the forefront. The phrase I heard most often in those years was: “It is time to move out of our parents’ house and take responsibility for our own future.”
Over the past 25 years Nuuk, the capital, has grown enormously, and its population keeps rising while rural areas shrink. This is a global trend. Cities offer better services and more varied jobs than scattered settlements, and their pull grows, especially as more women enter the workforce. It is difficult to regret this development.
Greenlanders recognise that standing on their own feet requires financial self-sufficiency. The Danish state contributes about ISK 85–90 billion to Greenland every year. That is about a fifth of GDP, and more than all of Greenland’s tax revenue combined. Greenlanders know they must close that gap if they leave the Danish Realm. In recent years they have hoped that tax revenue from natural resources would grow enough to make the country self-sufficient. In my 2013 book Norðurslóðasókn (Arctic Push) I reviewed projects that looked promising at the time. But the revenue has been slow to materialise.
How Greenland got on the map
When Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, then President of Iceland, founded the Arctic Circle in 2013, I had a part in that initiative. At the time it was hard to get Washington to pay attention to the Arctic. A large delegation from Alaska has taken part in the Arctic Circle Assembly from the start, but the federal government showed no interest. Today the Arctic Circle is the largest forum for discussion of Arctic affairs, including Greenland.
In 2018 a tender was held for construction work on airports in Greenland. Among the bidders that passed prequalification was the Chinese state contractor China Communications Construction Company (CCCC). I thought this was likely to draw Washington’s attention, and it certainly did.
Around that time James Mattis, then US Secretary of Defense, invited his Danish counterpart to Washington to discuss Chinese investment in Greenland. A month later Denmark and Greenland began talks on Danish financing, and plans for Chinese financing were put on hold. In September 2018 the Danish government announced that it would take part in financing the airports. In June 2019 CCCC formally withdrew its bid, stating that it could not obtain the necessary visas. US pressure had worked.
This was a complete game changer for Greenland. In August the same year President Trump said he wanted to buy Greenland. That put Greenland firmly on the world map.
Greenland’s government replied at once that Greenland was not for sale but was open for investment and trade. With that, Greenland unexpectedly found itself in a new and unique position in its history.
Icelanders are already there
The largest infrastructure investments in Greenland have been the expansion of the port in Nuuk and the airport programme mentioned above. The port expansion cost about USD 80 million and was financed partly by US pension funds and otherwise by the Greenlandic government. Denmark eventually took part in financing the airports.
The Icelandic contractor Ístak has completed a school, sports hall, assembly hall and other facilities in Nuuk for about ISK 12 billion, and the school opened in August. The company had earlier built Greenland’s main hydropower plants.
Greenland’s connections to the outside world increasingly run through Iceland. Eimskip began cooperating with Royal Arctic Line in 2016, linking Greenland to Eimskip’s international shipping network. The two companies now share vessels on scheduled routes, and Eimskip has since taken over Royal Arctic Line’s agency and freight-forwarding operations in Greenland. Icelandair flies scheduled services to Nuuk, Ilulissat and the east coast, and Icelandic airports are one of the main gateways into the country for tourists and business. Direct international flights to the east coast go only through Iceland. No other neighbour of Greenland has built comparable infrastructure by air and sea.
Icelanders are also major investors in Greenland more broadly. Brim hf., whose principal owner is Guðmundur Kristjánsson, invested about ISK 13.5 billion in Greenland in 2020. It took a 16.5% stake in Arctic Prime Fisheries in the south of the country and sold the company a newly built freezer trawler. In 2022 Brim also bought a half stake in Polar Seafood Denmark for about USD 90 million. This summer it sold that stake to its co-owner, Polar Seafood Greenland, for about USD 145 million, at a time when calls for Greenlandic ownership of the fishing industry had been growing. The largest private investor in Greenlandic mining in recent years has been Amaroq, formerly AEX Gold, which Eldur Ólafsson has built up with considerable skill. The company has developed the Nalunaq gold mine, which began production at the end of 2024, and its chief executive expects it to become the country’s largest taxpayer next year.
Taken together, across shipping and aviation, fishing and mining, contracting and construction, Icelanders are one of the most active foreign players in the Greenlandic economy. Icelandic interest has therefore already turned into action and projects, even though official government policy has not followed.
Two former colonies
Denmark ran a trade monopoly in Greenland and barred everyone else from entering the country. For decades after the Second World War, Danish was made the dominant language of instruction at the expense of Greenlandic, and Denmark’s conduct in the 20th century was far from exemplary. The IUD case alone makes the point: contraceptive coils were inserted into Greenlandic women without their knowledge or consent. Only after Trump’s statements in his second term did the Danish government formally apologise for that atrocity. Nor should it be forgotten that in 1951 Denmark took children from their families and placed them with Danish foster families, in an attempt to make them Danish and “role models” for other Greenlanders. Denmark took Greenland into the European Economic Community in 1973 while letting the Faroe Islands stay out. One of the first things the Home Rule government did after its formation in 1979 was to begin the process of leaving the EEC, which was completed in 1985.
Iceland took a similar path, although Danish overreach never went as far there. We became a sovereign state under the Danish crown in 1918, and an independent republic in 1944, sheltered by our Western ties.
Britain occupied Iceland in May 1940 without asking anyone’s permission, a month after the Nazis took Denmark and invaded Norway. About a year later the US military took over from the British, who needed their troops elsewhere. Since then, US support for Iceland has been invaluable, for example in the Cod Wars and in building Iceland’s infrastructure. The same can be said of Greenland. When the Nazis occupied Denmark, the Americans took over Greenland’s defence and set up economic activity around mines. They built infrastructure and brought the country closer to a modern way of life. Denmark tried to close the country again after the war, but the trade monopoly was lifted in 1950, and since then no one has thought of banning foreign trade and contact. Greenlanders now have a unique opportunity to deepen their ties with North America.
Through its bases, the United States has guaranteed Greenland’s defence. Greenland Energy, an American company, plans to drill for oil in Jameson Land on Scoresby Sund.
Iceland is the only country that has, on its own initiative and by peaceful means, moved out of this particular “parental home”, and Icelandic society has developed exceptionally well since 1944. It follows that our experience can be of great use to our closest neighbours. The key, however, is that everything is done on Greenlanders’ terms. It must not look as though we intend to take Denmark’s place in decision-making in Greenland.
Property rights and international trade: what decides the outcome
Energy Transition Minerals, formerly Greenland Minerals, held an exploration licence for the Kuannersuit deposit near Narsaq. It has sued the government, which refused it an exploitation licence, and is claiming compensation of more than three times Greenland’s national income, up to DKK 80 billion or about USD 11.5 billion. In autumn 2025, however, an arbitration tribunal ruled that the licence question fell outside its jurisdiction and that Denmark could not be a party, and the case is now before the Greenlandic courts. The Greenlandic government has also delayed the planned oil drilling at Scoresby Sund, which in August was postponed by at least a year.
Property rights are the foundation of all trade, and therefore of prosperity. Greenlanders have historically placed little weight on property rights; there is, for example, no private ownership of land. This holds back all investment and development in the country.
Predictable government action, property rights and an appetite for foreign investment were key factors in Iceland’s path to prosperity. Building energy and transport infrastructure required foreign capital, which demanded predictability and reliable long-term contracts. Here the Greenlandic government could look to Iceland’s experience. International trade and international agreements also secured higher living standards for Iceland. Icelandic business figures have presented ideas for a free trade agreement between Iceland, Greenland and the United States under the name Inneq, and are currently working on credible paths to that goal.
In my view, this is Greenlanders’ historic opportunity to secure their future: to leave centuries of colonial history behind, open the country to closer ties both east and west, and take responsibility for their own affairs. The opportunity is unique now that the United States, Denmark and Greenland have signed an agreement that expands the 1951 defence agreement and cements the US role in Greenland’s defence.
The two proposals are modest by the standards of international politics. But they are feasible, and they address what actually decides the outcome. Our interests and those of Greenlanders largely coincide, even though we compete for fishing rights, tourists and capital. What matters is that Greenlanders make the decision themselves. Our role is to be useful, not to replace anyone.