Trump’s Greenland plan glosses over a history of segregation and discrimination for Indigenous Alaskans

Donald Trump has wanted America to annex Greenland for a long time. He now has a concrete plan to do it. As reported by the New York Times, the president’s National Security Council has instructed several government departments to get to work on acquiring the island.

Trump has made it clear that the use of military force remains on the table. But, at least for now, it seems the plan will rely mostly on persuasion.

The first component is a coordinated advertising and social media campaign aimed at convincing Greenlanders that their future lies under the stars and stripes. The administration plans to tell the island’s residents that they will be more prosperous and more secure as part of the US.

Driving that message home will be an uphill struggle. A poll in January 2025 found that 85% of Greenlanders oppose the idea of being annexed by the US. A parliamentary election in March also showed little support for it. The best-performing party was the pro-business Demokraatit, which wants to slow walk changes to Greenland’s international status.

To overcome this resistance, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to appeal to shared ethnic and cultural ties between Inuit Greenlanders, who make up about 88% of the island’s population, and Indigenous peoples in the US state of Alaska. Greenlanders are likely to question that approach for a number of reasons.

These ties are not completely imaginary. Greenland Inuit are descended from the Thule people, who migrated from Alaska around 1,000 years ago. There are similarities between the languages of Alaskan and Greenland Inuit.

But these people have been separated by 2,000 miles for centuries, and in the interim have been shaped by their divergent histories. Though their languages are similar, they are generally not mutually intelligible.

One of the main factors separating Alaskan and Greenland Inuit is their separate colonial histories. Greenland was colonised by Denmark, and Alaska by the US. The details of this colonial history are likely to give Greenlanders pause.

Alaska became a US state in 1959. Before then, it was a territory – a colonial holding similar to Puerto Rico or Guam today. During its time as a territory, the US government and white settlers treated Alaska’s Indigenous people with a mixture of disinterest and malice.

Until discrimination was outlawed by a state law in 1945, Indigenous Alaskans lived in a system of segregation and limited rights similar to the “Jim Crow” policies of the southern US. Indigenous Alaskans, like African Americans in the southern states, were not guaranteed the right to vote, and “whites only” signs were commonplace in businesses.

During the second world war, the US government feared a Japanese attack on the Aleutian islands, which form part of Alaska. As a result, it forcibly evacuated the Indigenous population, burning their villages to prevent invading Japanese troops from using them as housing. Evacuees were forced to live in unsanitary camps on the mainland for years, where more than one in ten died.

The US government justified this as a geopolitical necessity. But given that great power politics is also behind its drive to control Greenland, the island’s residents should question whether their rights will be respected if they conflict with another perceived geopolitical necessity.

Buying favour

Another plank of the Trump administration’s plan is financial. The White House apparently wants to replace the subsidy that Greenland currently receives from Denmark with a payment of US$10,000 (£7,600) per resident. It’s not clear if this money is intended to go directly to the population, or to the island’s central government.

This works out at just over US$568 million (£429 million) a year. If it’s a subsidy for the central government, then it’s slightly less than the island currently receives from Denmark. And if it’s a payment directly to the population, then it’s unclear how public services on the island would be funded.

Here again, a look at the experience of Indigenous Alaskans is instructive. Indigenous Alaskans, who receive various US government services through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, have a much higher poverty rate than the general population, lower rates of health coverage and worse educational outcomes.

They also generally don’t live as long. According to the most recent figures, the life expectancy for Indigenous Alaskans is 70.4 years – much lower than the statewide average of 74.5.

Economic development – or, perhaps more accurately, exploiting Greenland’s natural resources – is also part of Trump’s plan. Trump is apparently interested in Greenland’s “rare earth minerals, copper, gold, uranium and oil”.

Greenland does indeed have vast mineral wealth. But it is unclear if it can be safely accessed in the island’s current inhospitable environment.

Such resource extraction could also easily lead to environmental damage, as it has done in Alaska. In 1989, for example, the Exxon Valdez oil supertanker spilled more than 10 million gallons of crude oil in Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

Meanwhile, without strong regulation and taxation, the wealth generated could easily accrue to corporations rather than Greenlanders.

There is a long history of colonising powers claiming that only they, rather than “the natives”, can deliver prosperity and progress to a country. Trump’s plan, which tries to turn the experience of Indigenous Alaskans into one that Greenlanders should want to emulate, fits squarely into this genre.

But the history of US involvement in Alaska and its treatment of Indigenous Alaskans gives lie to that story. For Greenlanders to trade their sovereignty to the US in return for a guarantee of prosperity and security would be a risky gamble indeed.

Andrew Gawthorpe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.