As President Donald Trump intensifies his campaign to purchase Greenland, international journalists have descended on the island, eager to gauge the reactions of its political leaders and citizens.
In recent weeks, a wave of global media outlets, including The Associated Press, Reuters, the BBC, and Al Jazeera, as well as journalists from Scandinavian nations and Japan, have flocked to this semi-autonomous Danish territory. Their presence has left local politicians and community figures inundated with interview requests.
President Trump has asserted that acquiring the approximately 800,000-square-mile island is crucial for national security. However, Greenland’s leaders have consistently stated that the island is not on the market.
According to Juno Berthelsen, a parliamentarian from the Naleraq opposition party, the media frenzy escalated last year when Trump first made his interest in Greenland known. Berthelsen noted that he has been conducting multiple interviews daily over the past fortnight.
“We are a small community, and it becomes exhausting when journalists repeatedly ask the same questions,” Berthelsen shared with the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, reporters continue their work in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, as captured on January 15 by an AP photographer.
Greenland’s population is about 57,000 people, with roughly 20,000 living in Nuuk, the small capital city where the same collection of business owners are repeatedly asked to do news interviews, sometimes as many as 15 a day.
Many residents interviewed by the AP said they want the world to know that Greenlanders will decide their own future and expressed confusion about why Trump wants to control the island.
Residents and officials in Nuuk face growing media attention as President Trump renews efforts to acquire the strategically located island. (AP Photo/Emma Burrows)
“It’s just weird how obsessed [Trump] is with Greenland,” Maya Martinsen, 21, told the AP.
She said Trump is “basically lying about what he wants out of Greenland,” asserting that the president is using U.S. national security as a means to take control of “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
The Americans, Martinsen continued, “only see what they can get out of Greenland and not what it actually is.”
Rows of houses in Nuuk, Greenland, on Jan. 13, 2026. (Marko Djurica/Reuters)
“It has beautiful nature and lovely people. It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade,” she added.
Americans, however, appear ambivalent about the acquisition, with 86% of voters nationwide saying they would oppose military action to take over Greenland, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. By a 55%-37% margin, voters surveyed said they opposed any U.S. effort to try to buy Greenland.
On Wednesday, Trump said in a social media post that “anything less” than U.S. control of Greenland is “unacceptable,” but Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said during a news conference this week that the island will not be owned or governed by the United States.
Trump’s recent comments have sparked tension with Denmark and other NATO allies, and troops from several European countries, including France, Germany, Sweden and Norway, deployed to Greenland this week for a brief two-day mission to bolster the territory’s defenses.
