At the new consulate’s opening last month, hundreds of protesters chanted “U.S.A., go home.” Fearing the expanded footprint was a not-so-subtle threat to the self-governing territory’s sovereignty.

“This is a huge facility in one of the biggest buildings in the capital of Greenland and therefore the entire country,” Ben Taub, a staff writer for the New Yorker, said in a recent podcast interview. “It’s about 150 meters from the parliament, and it’s now regarded as something that people fear as a kind of ‘annexation headquarters’ because the facility does not make sense except in the context of something that looks like a takeover.”

Denmark and allies try to deter Trump’s Greenland ambitions

Greenlanders are still traumatized by President Donald Trump’s bellicose vow just six short months ago to acquire Greenland for the U.S. one way or another.

“I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way, but if we don’t do it the easy way, we’re going to do it the hard way,” Trump said in January.

Greenland and its European allies were so spooked by what seemed to be a very real threat of a U.S. military takeover of the giant island that Denmark, which owns the territory, and seven other NATO countries deployed troops there. Under the guise of a “pre-coordinated Danish exercise,” aimed at “strengthening Arctic security.”

It was dubbed exercise “Arctic Endurance.” But more accurately, it could have been called “Arctic Deterrence.”

“They actually carried live ammunition and explosives, and they prepared to blow up Greenland’s runways to slow any possible invasion,” Taub said. “The Danes also carried fresh blood packs in case of casualties and were operating under standing orders that were reiterated to them that they should shoot at any invading forces.”

The crisis was defused a week later when Trump went to Davos and met with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. In Switzerland, Trump announced he’d made a deal.

“We can do anything we want. We can do military, we can do anything we want,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One, “The time limit is infinity, meaning there is no time limit. It’s forever.”

But since then, the U.S. has made no new investment in Greenland, aside from the new consulate. Raising suspicions that Trump isn’t satisfied with basing or mineral rights. Rather, that he still lusts after ownership of what he calls a “big, poorly run, piece of ice!”

Trump-NATO tensions

Trump is on the outs with NATO, fuming over the fact that some allies, including France, Italy, and Spain, refused to allow their bases to be used in Operation Epic Fury. Something War Secretary Pete Hegseth told fellow defense ministers meeting in Brussels was “shameful.”

“These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access facing an overflight that never should have been in question at all,” Hegseth said.

Trump traces his falling out to the refusal of NATO allies to back his acquisition of Greenland. Which, in his Davos speech, he called “a very small ask.”

“You can say ‘yes,’ and we will be very appreciative, or you can say ‘no,’ and we will remember,” he said.

And Trump hasn’t forgotten.

“You know, it all began with, if you want to know the truth, Greenland,” Trump said in early April. “We want Greenland. They don’t want to give it to us, and I said, ‘Bye bye.’”

While Trump’s Greenland fixation has faded from the headlines, he keeps bringing it up.

“We should have Greenland to protect the world against Russia and China,” he told Fox Business news host Maria Bartiromo in late April.

A few days later, he posted on Truth Social a photo illustration showing him as a giant head peering over a mountain at a small Greenlandic village. With the title “Hello Greenland.”

At the same time, he dispatched his special envoy to Greenland, Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA), to Nuuk to make friends and influence people.

Landry, who had never been to Greenland before,  arrived on a Sunday without an invitation and with no meetings arranged.

“I’m here simply to build relationships, to look, to listen and to learn,” Landry said, according to the BBC.

By all accounts, the Greenland government was perplexed by his visit. 

Landry bought a ticket and sat in on a business conference. And afterward wooed local children with offers of “all the chocolate chip cookies they could eat” if they visited him at the Governor’s Mansion in Louisiana.  

A session with reporters went awry when Landry was quizzed about what he was up to.

“This is all about building a relationship, Landry explained. “Greenland was not on the map until Donald Trump put it on the map,” he said. “In other words, the United States … before Donald Trump has basically ignored this place.”

That didn’t sit well with Greenlanders, who are increasingly annoyed by the handful of MAGA influencers trying to convince the citizenry they’d be richer and better off cutting ties with Denmark and becoming part of the U.S. Efforts that Reuters, in a recent investigation, reported: “appear to be backfiring.”

Polls show that a majority of Greenlanders (56%) favor independence from Denmark. But an even bigger majority (80%) are opposed to becoming Americans.

Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, for the past five months, negotiators from the U.S., Greenland, and Denmark have been holding confidential talks in Washington.

The U.S. demands — including a guarantee that U.S. troops could stay forever and veto power over any foreign investment deals — amount to Greenland sacrificing much of its sovereignty.

“If the Americans get everything they want, Justus Hansen, a member of Greenland’s Parliament, told the New York Times, there will never be “real independence.”

RUSSIA IS LEARNING CRIMEA DOESN’T PAY

But given Trump’s bold moves in Venezuela and Iran, Greenlandic officials also remember Trump’s words of more than a year ago.

“We need Greenland for national security. … One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) is the Washington Examiner’s senior writer on national security.