Trump vs. Greenland. This is how he wants to take control of the island
Donald Trump has backed down from his threat to take Greenland by force, but the war on the internet is just beginning.
In January, the president of the United States shocked Europe by threatening to impose tariffs to subdue Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark.
Although the intensity of threats has subsided for now, Danish and European diplomats say the small island remains vulnerable. the influence of the American administration on the Internet.
With a population of less than 60 thousand residents, even the smallest drop of disinformation can spread quickly and significantly influence public opinion – especially when the false narrative comes not from anonymous Russian trolls, but from the most powerful politician in the Western world.
— Greenland is the target of various types of influence campaigns — Danish Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard tells POLITICO. He adds that one of the goals of such campaigns is to “call out divisions in relations between Denmark and Greenland“.
Disinformation on the island has increased over the past year, according to Thomas Hedin, editor-in-chief of the Danish fact-checking website TjekDet.
A new kind of confrontation
Although the influx of information did not constitute a “structured campaign”, including from Russia, Hedin cites as an example of disinformation the idea that The United States can buy Greenland. He explains that this is a message repeated by Trump, but impossible to implement under the Danish constitution.
The fact that Greenland is not part of the EU means that EU social media law — which obliges platforms to consider and mitigate the risks of disinformation in civil discourse — does not apply, the Danish Digital Ministry tells POLITICO.
Although polls show Greenlanders still support integration with Europe, German Green Party MP Sergey Lagodinsky says the EU must prepare for a “new kind of hybrid confrontation” over the island.
— It's no longer about fighting Russian trolls trying to hack the system. If they are directed against the EU and Greenland, disinformation campaigns on US platforms become a system, he says.
GreenlandGonzalo Azumendi/Getty Images
Vulnerable
The relationship between Denmark and Greenland is special vulnerable to violationsaccording to Signe Ravn-Hojgaard, co-founder and CEO of the Danish Digital Infrastructure Think Tank, which analyzed the disinformation situation in Greenland.
With a population the size of a Brussels commune news in Greenland spreads quickly. At the same time, there are few media outlets that can refute false information. Most people rely on Facebook, Ravn-Hojgaard notes. Just a few shares are enough for a false message to reach the entire population.
“The situation is completely different than in Denmark,” says Ravn-Hojgaard. If in a city of 20 thousand inhabitants 5 thousand people believe in something that is untrue, “it does not constitute a threat to democracy in Denmark.” However, in Greenland, “firstly, this information would quickly spread among everyone, and secondly, it concerns a large percentage of the population,” the expert adds.
According to two researchers interviewed by POLITICO, organized campaigns of foreign interference have not yet emerged on the island, but disinformation is spreading.
EU alert
Two members of the Greenland government, Minister of Fisheries Peter Borg and Minister of Labor Aqqaluaq Egede, have appealed to the public for “uniting” on social media in the face of threats from the United States.
EU lawmakers also raised the alarm. Green Party MP Alexandra Geese believes that “we should expect influence operations using cutting-edge propaganda campaigns, as well as hate and harassment campaigns against politicians in Greenland and Denmark.”
US President Donald Trump, February 2, 2026ALEX WONG/Getty Images
Although Copenhagen has stated that there is no legal obligation to enforce the EU's Digital Services Act on the Greenlandic territory, several lawmakers note that this should change.
Geese notes that the EU should enforce the law “to ensure that algorithms respect users' choices and do not act in the interests of the same tech oligarchs who invest in Greenland's resources.”
Greenland's weak point
This is despite the fact that the EU has not yet achieved tangible results in other areas. The European Commission has not completed any of its investigations into threats to elections and civil discourse, even though it is investigating four platforms, including Facebook and Instagram Meta, TikTok and X.
In addition to prompting platforms to make changes to their systems, a Digital Services Act could also help bring transparency to the online ecosystem. The law requires platforms to be transparent about paid advertising and data. And this is what is missing in Greenland, as Ravn-Hojgaard says.
Ravn-Hojgaard cites the example of paid ads that appeared on Facebook ahead of the March 2025 elections that were not available in the platform's transparency database.
Lagodinsky adds that the EU should establish a “special group of experts exclusively dealing with Greenland.”
Brussels could also increase support for fact-checking networks and civil society organizations, similar to support offered in countries such as Moldova and Ukraine.
