Carrying two steaming cappuccinos from a popular American coffee chain on Thursday, Niels Berthelsen took the time to stop despite the icy cold winds whipping the streets of Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital.
"If they want to make deals about Greenland, they have to invite Greenland to the negotiating table," the 49-year-old skipper told AFP.
"Nothing about Greenland without Greenland," he insisted repeatedly.
Trump backed down on threats to seize Greenland by force after meeting NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte on Wednesday, saying they had reached a "framework" deal on the Danish autonomous territory.
While details of the agreement made at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos remained scant, many Greenlanders, who fiercely defend their right to self-determination, were disappointed.
"It's obviously a good thing that the military threat has gone down," Berthelsen said.
"But they could just as easily have reached an agreement by inviting Greenland to the table, rather than having Mark Rutte negotiate a deal with Trump by himself. I find that very disrespectful on Mark Rutte's part."
Fellow Nuuk resident Esther Jensen agreed.
"I'm very disappointed, because Rutte cannot make any kind of agreement with Trump without Denmark or Greenland, and Denmark cannot make any decision without Greenland either. So we are very disappointed," said Jensen.
Greenland's prime minister said he was not aware of the contents of the framework agreement, but stressed no deal could be made without involving the island.
"Nobody else than Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark have the mandate to make deals or agreements about Greenland and the Kingdom of Denmark without us," Jens-Frederik Nielsen told a press conference.
"We have some red lines... We have to respect our territorial integrity. We have to respect international law, sovereignty."
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said Rutte had coordinated with her and the Greenlandic government -- though Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on social media that Rutte "cannot negotiate an agreement on behalf of Denmark or Greenland".
- Longing for quieter times -
A Danish colony for three centuries, Greenland, which today has around 57,000 inhabitants, gradually gained autonomy in the second half of the 20th century.
But Denmark's assimilation policies -- including de facto bans on the Inuit language and forced sterilisations -- have left Greenlanders bitter and angry.
"Our country will neither be given away, nor will our future be gambled with," Greenland's Deputy Prime Minister Mute Egede said in a post on Facebook.
"It is unacceptable to attempt to hand our land to others. This is our land -- we are the ones who shape its future."
In Nuuk, some residents wondered what really went down in Davos.
"We know all too well that Trump has a tendency to read too much into some things," said 80-year-old pensioner Arkalo Abelsen.
"When Rutte... says that they've spoken about some possible solutions, in Trump's mind, that becomes a deal," Abelsen said, leaning on a crutch.
"That's not a deal. There's no agreement."
The unwelcome surge of interest in Greenland, and the turbulence caused by recent events, has tested locals' tranquil temperament.
"Ever since Trump was re-elected president, we never know what's going to happen from one day to the next," said Abelsen.
"Especially when he goes after our country like it's a piece of ice drifting in the sea. It's very destabilising. We feel powerless.
"My wife and I speak about it every day. We say, 'If only we could go back to the days before Trump.' Back then, we knew what was going to happen."
Susan Gudmundsdottir Johnsen, a 52-year-old travel agency employee, also said she longed for quieter times.
"From now on, we need peace and quiet."
What are Russia and China doing in the Arctic?
Moscow (AFP) Jan 22, 2026 -
While Russia and China strongly deny any plans to seize Greenland, as US President Donald Trump claims, both value the Arctic's strategic value and are seeking to boost their presence there.
The development of the Northern Sea Route (NSR) by Russia and China since the 2010s, made possible by a warming climate, is real, as is the strengthening of Russian military capabilities in the Arctic.
Here are the main things to know about how Russian and Chinese presence in the region could develop.
- Northern Sea Route -
Russia considers the Arctic essential to the growth of its trade with Asia, including to counterbalance the effects of Western sanctions on its oil and gas, which were imposed after the Kremlin's 2022 assault on Ukraine.
Moscow wants to maximise shipping through the NSR, where ships can sail through more easily due to melting ice caused by climate change.
The route runs along Russia's Arctic coastline, which is far away from Greenland. Moscow hopes it will increase transport of Russian oil to South East Asia by connecting the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
To that end, Russia has built the world's only nuclear-powered icebreakers, vessels capable of clearing thick ice on the route to open the way for cargo ships.
Several months after launching the Ukraine campaign -- Russia's main focus in the last four years -- Moscow said it still intended to develop the route and has approved an investment plan of around EUR20 billion ($23.4 billion) until 2035.
But for now, trade via this route remains expensive and complicated.
Its volume is far from the hundreds of millions of tonnes of goods that pass through the Suez Canal each year.
In 2025, 37 million tonnes of goods were transported via the NSR, a 2.3 percent decrease year-on-year, according to official data quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency.
China launched its Polar Silk Road project in 2018, an Arctic version of its transnational infrastructure initiative.
Beijing aims to become a "polar power" by 2030 and has established scientific research stations in Iceland and Norway.
- Russia strengthening Arctic forces -
Militarily, the Arctic region is also a strategic priority for Moscow.
"Russia never threatened anyone in the Arctic," President Vladimir Putin said in March last year.
"But we are attentively watching the development of the situation, building an adequate response by strengthening the possibilities of our armed forces and modernising military infrastructure," he added.
In 2021, Moscow announced it had built a 3.5-kilometre (two-mile) runway capable of accommodating all types of aircraft -- including nuclear-armed bombers -- on the Franz Josef Land archipelago in Russia's far north.
In 2019, the Russian army also said it deployed the latest generation S-400 anti-aircraft systems in the Arctic and opened a new radar base on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago.
In September 2025, the Russian Northern Fleet, which is responsible for Russia's Arctic regions, conducted new military exercises involving troop landings and firing from ships and nuclear submarines.
In the Arctic, China's military presence, while modest, has also grown, mainly in collaboration with Russia since 2022.
In 2024, Russian and Chinese bomber planes conducted a joint patrol at the junction between the Asian and American continents, not far from the US state of Alaska.
China also operates a number of icebreakers that are equipped with mini submarines, which are capable of mapping the seabed and are potentially militarily useful.
Beijing also has Arctic observation satellites, which it insists have scientific aims.
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