Indigenous leaders across the Arctic have delivered a forceful rejection of American claims to Greenland, warning that any US takeover would simply replace one colonial power with another and strip the island's 56,000 residents of their hard-won autonomy.
"There's no such thing as a better colonizer," Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council and a former member of both the Greenlandic and Danish parliaments, told CBC News in an interview published this weekend.
Olsvig's comments reflect growing alarm among Inuit communities that they are being treated as "geopolitical chess pieces" as President Donald Trump escalates his campaign to acquire Greenland. The American leader has refused to rule out military force to seize the autonomous Danish territory, citing its strategic importance in the Arctic.
For the Inuit, the current crisis carries echoes of painful history. Laakkuluk Williamson, an Iqaluit resident with Greenlandic heritage, warned that US annexation could reduce Greenland to the status of American Samoa or Puerto Rico—territories whose residents lack full constitutional protections and congressional representation despite being under American sovereignty.
"Greenland's small population could not resist a forced American takeover," Williamson said, expressing fear that Greenlanders would lose both their autonomy and their voice in determining their own future.
To understand today's headlines, we must look at yesterday's decisions. Greenland's Inuit population has spent decades negotiating greater self-governance from Denmark, which colonized the island in the 18th century. The Home Rule Act of 1979 and the Self-Government Act of 2009 gradually transferred control over domestic affairs to the Greenlandic government, though Copenhagen retains authority over foreign policy and defense.
Many Greenlanders view this autonomy as incomplete—polling data cited by Indigenous leaders suggests most reject Danish control. But the prospect of American annexation is viewed as even worse, representing a potential return to colonial subjugation rather than a path toward genuine independence.
Aaju Peter, a lawyer born in Greenland who now lives in Iqaluit, emphasized that "Greenlandic Inuit are sovereign and should make their own decisions through diplomatic channels respecting their autonomy."
The Inuit Circumpolar Council, which represents approximately 180,000 Inuit across Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Russia, has emerged as a key voice opposing any transfer of Greenland to US control. The organization has called for maintaining the Arctic Council—a multilateral forum that includes both Russia and Western nations—as a framework for addressing regional issues through cooperation rather than great power competition.
The intervention by Indigenous leaders adds a crucial dimension often missing from geopolitical analysis of the Greenland crisis. While diplomats in Washington, Copenhagen, and Brussels debate sovereignty and security, the people who actually live in Greenland—predominantly Inuit who have inhabited the island for millennia—are making clear they have no interest in exchanging one distant ruler for another.
Olsvig was emphatic: Inuit have "experienced colonization and understand its harmful consequences when distant powers make decisions affecting their lives."
Whether Washington will listen to those voices remains uncertain. But the message from Greenland's Indigenous population is unambiguous: any solution to the island's future must center Inuit self-determination, not the strategic calculations of great powers treating the Arctic as a chessboard.
