The average Dane used to think about Greenland perhaps once a year, typically during Queen Margrethe’s New Year’s Eve speech. On her majesty’s desk would sit one or two small, white, carved figures or tupilak, from Greenland (in Danish, ‘Grønland’). Those who were playing Queen’s Speech Bingo might have given a little cheer at the annual good wishes she sent to the 57,000 inhabitants of the remotest part of her kingdom.

But, as Greenland has again fallen under the covetous gaze of the incoming US president, the topic of Denmark’s largest autonomous territory is very much on people’s minds in Copenhagen.

This year, it was the turn of Margrethe’s son, King Frederik X to speak to the Danes on 31 December, his mother having used her last speech to spring a surprise abdication. Gone were the tupilak – which some have since interpreted as a bad omen – but he did at least mention Greenland. ‘We belong together,’ he said, pointedly.

The king also unveiled an updated national coat of arms featuring an enlarged polar bear and ram, representing Greenland and the other Danish autonomous region, the Faroe Islands, respectively. Much more has been read into this than otherwise might have been the case in the wake of Donald Trump’s pre-Christmas comments describing ‘ownership and control of Greenland (as) an absolute necessity’ for the US on economic and global security grounds. Since then, he has ramped up tensions with Copenhagen, refusing to rule out a military invasion of the territory and despatched his son, Don Jr, to Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, for a photo op.

An invasion of Greenland would mean one NATO territory attacking another: still a fairly remote possibility, though Trump has form where Greenland is concerned. During his first term, in 2019, on the urging of his friend, Ronald ‘Estée’ Lauder, he suggested that the Danes might want to sell Greenland to the US. There was much eye-rolling in Copenhagen. Even Trump seemed to acknowledge humorous intent, posting a mock-up of a golden Trump Tower on the Greenlandic foreshore, captioned ‘I promise not to do this to Greenland!’

In the tone of a primary school teacher addressing a dim yet truculent pupil, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pointed out that Greenland was not for sale and, actually, belonged to the Greenlanders. With an indulgent chuckle in her voice, she told Danish television: ‘Joking aside… the time is past when people talked about buying and selling countries.’ Greenlandic sovereignty was a matter for its inhabitants, the Inuit. Trump called Frederiksen ‘nasty’ and ‘inappropriate’. He promptly cancelled a planned state visit to Denmark, which had been due to take place the following month (some suspected this was his ulterior motive).

This time, the Danes are less amused by Trump’s more alarming rhetoric. They are confronting the very real possibility of losing their priceless frozen real estate. Greenland makes up 98 per cent of Denmark’s total landmass. At the very least, it seems ungrateful on the part of the Americans. The US has long had a base in Greenland, at Pituffik Space base (formerly Thule Air Base), from where it monitors the skies for any ballistic missiles that might be heading its way. And, over the past few decades, the Danish government could hardly have done more to support America’s international agenda – to the point where they have appeared to some critics as embarrassingly subservient. Denmark has also granted the Pentagon controversial access to undersea communications cables.

The Danes are aware of the, as yet, untapped wealth that lies beneath Greenland’s receding permafrost in the form of fossil fuels and useful minerals. Currently, there is a ban on their extraction in the Arctic on environmental grounds, but all are aware of the incoming US administration’s attitude on this front. For now, though, Greenland makes what it can from selling fish and tupilak, yet remains economically dependent on the DKK 3.8bn (£428m) Denmark sends each year.

Copenhagen also incurs considerable defence costs in patrolling Greenland’s coast and Arctic waters (costs which the Danish government has just boosted with a timely injection of cash). The Danish state has also paid for the new airport at the capital, Nuuk, where Trump Force One landed with Don Jr on board. Indeed, Denmark stepped in to fund the airport because China was about to, and it was clear that Beijing had their own resource-grab in mind. Generally, though, Denmark funds Greenland partly out of colonial guilt but largely because influence there means influence in the Arctic, which in turn makes the nation of 5.7 million a significant player on the global stage.

In truth, Greenland has been on course for independence for many years. Opinion polls point to a majority in favour, which may well be achieved within the next five years. Prime Minister Múte B. Egede has reiterated that the territory is not for sale, but with ever-diminishing pro-Danish sentiment among his fellow Inuits, the only real barrier to a split from Denmark is economic.

Some Greenlanders are basking in the attention Trump’s intervention has generated. It’s nice to be fought over, at least diplomatically, but so far the message to Mar-a-Lago is that they are more ‘open to business’ than ‘open to offers’. That said, an election looms in the territory; it will take place no later than 6 April and it will be interesting to see how Trump’s latest comments affect public sentiment. The economic incentives to partner with the US to exploit natural resources are powerful, to say the least.

Many Danes, meanwhile, still talk about Greenland in terms of ‘ownership’ (Copenhagen still runs its international affairs), or they tend to consider the territory to be an irritating cost with no tangible benefits. Prejudices about the Inuits abound, that they are all alcoholics being the most common. Some Danes are only now confronting the darker aspects of the colonial era – including the enforced sterilisation of Inuit women – which ended in 1953, when Greenlanders were granted their first representatives in the Danish parliament. When they meet foreigners, Danes will often describe their nation as small, its population even smaller, but they often add that they once ruled a vast territory, encompassing Iceland, Norway, southern Sweden and parts of northern Germany (they tend not to boast so loudly about the colonies in the West Indies and India). If you are English, they will definitely point out what the Vikings did in the eighth century, but will also ruefully concede that they have lost all of the above.

It is then that they will play their ‘trump’ card: ‘But, of course, you know, we still own Greenland, the largest island in the world.’ You could say the territory remains a conflicted source of pride.

As for the prospect of becoming the 51st state of the US, it would be odd for the Greenlanders to shuffle free of one colonial rule only to embrace another, and there doesn’t seem to be great popular backing for the idea. Would the Americans be more sensitive to Inuit culture, for instance? Perhaps, but the Okinawans would have some alternative insights regarding American cultural impact on indigenous cultures. Environmental concerns are unlikely to be prioritised.

In the immediate short term, the Danes might be advised to strike a more sympathetic and egalitarian tone in their relationships with Denmark’s largest territory, and cross fingers that Trump’s attention shifts elsewhere in the coming months.