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Greenland’s foreign minister resigned in the middle of geopolitical tensions with the US when her political party withdrew from the coalition government on the vast Arctic island.
In a day of political drama that officials fear the Trump administration will exploit, Vivian Motzfeldt stepped down as foreign minister on Friday. She suggested she could switch parties in order to carry on as minister after Siumut — one of Greenland’s mainstream parties — said it would leave the four-way coalition government.
Jens-Frederik Nielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, called the timing of the Siumut decision “terrible”.
“I am very sorry and disappointed that this is happening at a time when we should stand together. Anything that may look like division is grist to the mill for strangers,” he said.
Greenland has been thrust into the centre of the geopolitical spotlight by Donald Trump’s repeatedly expressed desire to take control of the Arctic island from Denmark, potentially by force.
Danish intelligence has warned the US could try to exploit any division in either Greenlandic or Danish society as part of its pursuit of the island, where it operates the only military base in the far north.
Nielsen formed the broad four-party coalition last year, leaving one party in opposition — Naleraq, the party that has flirted the most with the Trump administration and the only one to favour swift independence for Greenland from Copenhagen.
Motzfeldt has played a central role in negotiations with the US, meeting vice-president JD Vance and secretary of state Marco Rubio together with Denmark’s foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen at the White House in January.
The two sides agreed to set up a working group to explore if there was a way to bridge the gap between the US’s push for a bigger presence in Greenland and the Danish and Greenlandic position that their sovereignty should be respected and that the island was not for sale.
Motzfeldt as well as former Siumut prime minister Kim Kielsen said they were against the party’s decision to withdraw from the coalition, which was due to two ministers from other parties standing in elections for the two Greenlandic seats in Denmark’s parliament.
Motzfeldt said “time would tell” if she would change parties and she told local media “it is more important than ever to stand together for Greenland”.