{"id":312486,"date":"2026-01-26T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=312486"},"modified":"2026-01-24T19:45:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:45:18","slug":"recentering-the-debate-over-greenland-begins-with-calling-kalaallit-nunaat-by-its-actual-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/01\/recentering-the-debate-over-greenland-begins-with-calling-kalaallit-nunaat-by-its-actual-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Recentering the Debate over \u2018Greenland\u2019 Begins with Calling Kalaallit Nunaat by Its Actual Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

21 Jan 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0Kalaallit Nunaat is the name of the country that Donald Trump is salivating over, according to the people who live there. The place that US media call Greenland is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark, with the right to secede by holding a referendum.<\/p>\n

In a rare example of treating the Inuit of Kalaallit Nunaat as real people rather than pieces in a board game, the New York Times<\/b> (1\/14\/26<\/a>) sent two reporters to the island\u2019s capital of Nuuk to ask them what they thought. The Times<\/b>\u2018 Jeffrey Gettleman<\/a> and Maya Tekeli found next to no interest in becoming part of the United States; sources told them they were well aware of the United States\u2019 record of mistreating<\/a> its Indigenous residents, and further that they had little interest in trading Danish<\/a> socialized medicine for America\u2019s profit-based healthcare<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re not stupid,\u201d the article summed up the Inuit\u2019s message to Trump.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

New York Times (1\/14\/26): \u201cGreenlanders are trying to insert themselves into the discussions about their future before it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

A similar piece by AP<\/b> reporter Emma Burrows (reposted by PBS<\/b>, 1\/16\/26<\/a>) found the people of Kalaallit Nunaat similarly rejecting the \u201cbusiness trade\u201d that Trump was reducing their nation to. Opposition lawmaker Juno Berthelsen stressed that \u201cGreenland belongs to the Greenlandic people,\u201d and called for \u201cmaking sure that the Greenlandic people are the ones who are at the very center of this conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

An article from Al Jazeera<\/b> (1\/18\/26<\/a>) covered not just local opinion, but the island\u2019s political mobilizing against Trump\u2019s demands for annexation: \u201cThousands March in Greenland Against Trump\u2019s Threats to Take It Over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The message reporters get when they actually talk to the nation\u2019s citizens is that Kalaallit Nunaat is not a piece of property to be sold or swapped; it\u2019s a nation of people with the right to self-determination, and they will never become part of the United States, barring the exceedingly unlikely event that they determine that they want to be.<\/p>\n

\"CNN:<\/p>\n

CNN<\/strong> (1\/19\/26<\/a>): \u201cTrump has been consistent that the only way to truly reap Greenland\u2019s benefits is to own it outright.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018Is an off-ramp possible?\u2019<\/b><\/h3>\n

But the Kalaallit (as the nation\u2019s main Inuit community is called) are so far from the center as to be entirely absent from most US news reporting, which treats Trump\u2019s demand for the island as a conflict between the United States and Europe. Media present Trump\u2019s childish imperial fantasies\u2014he may have been impressed by the distorted size of the island on a Mercator map (Salon<\/b>, 1\/18\/26<\/a>)\u2014as grave matters of global strategy, in pieces like \u201cUS Needs Greenland for \u2018International Security,\u2019 Says President Trump\u201d (Yahoo<\/b>, 3\/28\/25<\/a>), \u201cWhy Trump Wants Greenland\u2014Why the White House Thinks It\u2019s So Important for National Security\u201d (CNBC<\/b>, 1\/7\/26<\/a>), \u201cEnergy Secretary Chris Wright Says Trump Wants Greenland for Long-Term National Security\u201d (CBS<\/b>, 1\/20\/26<\/a>) and \u201cThe Great Race for the Arctic: Why Russia, China and the US All Have It in Their Sights\u201d (CNN<\/b>, 1\/21\/26<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Such pieces treat US annexation of Kalaallit Nunaat as an open question\u2014\u201dTrump Makes Case for US Acquiring Greenland to Davos Leaders,\u201d reported The Hill<\/b> (1\/21\/26<\/a>)\u2014or even a fait accompli, as in the CNN<\/b> headline (1\/19\/26<\/a>): \u201cEven Some Trump Advisers Are Wary of a Military Pursuit of Greenland. Is an Off-Ramp Possible?\u201d Maybe not, is the implication.<\/p>\n

As with many pieces written about this Trump-created crisis, that CNN<\/b> article talks a lot about the United States, Europeans, even the Chinese\u2014but nothing at all about the people of Kalaallit Nunaat.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – fair.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Jan 2026\u00a0–\u00a0Kalaallit Nunaat is the name of the country that Donald Trump is salivating over, according to the people who live there. The place the media call Greenland is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark, with the right to secede by holding a referendum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":312487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[3033,1747,3844,234,2831,779,249],"class_list":["post-312486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-denmark","tag-greenland","tag-kalaallit-nunaat","tag-media","tag-scandinavia","tag-sovereignty","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312489,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312486\/revisions\/312489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}