The first official admissions regarding the so-called ‘Spiral Campaign’ emerged in 2022. Denmark confirmed the existence of a systematic program that, between 1966 and 1975, forced intrauterine devices (IUDs) onto approximately 4,500 Greenlandic Inuit women and girls—some as young as 13. This was no medical error; it was a calculated act of demographic engineering that effectively targeted half of the island’s fertile population.
This case illustrates exactly what colonization meant for the Inuit, who make up nearly 90% of the population. The issue at hand is not whether Greenland should belong to Denmark or the United States. The issue is the self-determination of Greenlanders. Trump’s pretensions must be opposed with this firmly in mind.
Roots of Control: From Sealed Colony to US Interest
How does a government arrive at the point of sterilizing half a population? To understand, we must look back to the end of the Second World War. For two centuries, starting in 1721, Denmark managed Greenland as a sealed colony. Copenhagen dictated who could trade and who could enter. The ostensible rationale was the “protection of native culture,” but it was total control disguised as paternalism.
This bubble burst on April 9, 1940. The Nazis occupied Denmark, and Greenland was suddenly left without a master. The void was filled by the United States, which landed to guarantee Atlantic security—and to control the cryolite mines at Ivittut. At the time, this was the world’s only commercial source of the mineral, essential for producing aluminum for Allied warplanes. Occupied Copenhagen was powerless to stop it. But when the war ended, Denmark faced a dilemma: how to avoid losing a Greenland that had become strategically vital to Washington.
The G-60 Strategy: Forced Modernization and Wage Apartheid
In 1953, Denmark approved a new Constitution: Greenland ceased to be a colony and became a Danish county (Amt). The process of forced “Danification” began. Thousands of workers from the mainland moved north to build a ‘modern Greenland.’ In 1960, there were roughly 2,700 Danes on the island; by 1975, there were over 7,000—nearly 20% of the population.
In this context, the “Birthplace Criterion” (Fødestedskriteriet) was introduced: for the exact same job, a Dane born on the continent earned a significantly higher base salary than a native Greenlander. When benefits (allowances, free housing) were added, the real gap was often double or triple. Formally, they were all Danish citizens; materially, a system of wage apartheid was in full effect.
These were also the years of the G-60 policy. The goal was to empty small traditional settlements and concentrate the population. This wasn’t just urban planning; it was social engineering applied to the assembly line. The plan involved closing isolated hunting stations to funnel the workforce into four “open-water towns”—Nuuk, Paamiut, Sisimiut, and Maniitsoq—the only ports that didn’t freeze over in winter. Here, gigantic fish processing plants (specifically for cod and shrimp) would transform the autonomous Arctic hunter into a wage laborer, forcibly inserting him into the global market economy.
Nuuk’s Blok P and the Urban Planning of Failure
The symbol of this era is Blok P in Nuuk, a concrete apartment block 200 meters long, built between 1966 and 1972. At its peak, it housed 1% of the island’s entire population. Hunters accustomed to infinite horizons found themselves crammed into concrete cells, where they were often forced to skin seals in their bathtubs because there was nowhere else to go.
Then there was the “Little Danes” experiment. In 1951, authorities selected 22 Inuit children around six years old—the “brightest” among them. They were supposed to be orphans, though it turned out only six actually were. Shipped to Denmark to be re-educated as “model citizens,” they returned to Nuuk a year later only to be interned in a Red Cross orphanage, separated from their relatives to avoid “contamination.” They became strangers in their own land. Many died young, consumed by alcoholism and psychiatric disorders. Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen offered a state apology in 2020, but for many, it was too late.
The Spiral Campaign was the apex of these policies. The official narrative claimed that modernization was too expensive: hospitals and schools required massive investment, and the Inuit population explosion would render the welfare state unsustainable. In official documents, the coil was not birth control, but an economic precondition. An investigation by the Danish state broadcaster (DR) revealed that many girls had no idea what was happening to them. When the scandal broke in 2022, the Danish government launched an independent inquiry, set to conclude in 2025.
The US Role: Thule Air Base and the 1968 Nuclear Accident
The United States, for its part, has offered no better alternative. In May 1953, the expansion of the Thule Air Base led to the forced displacement of the Inughuit community. 116 people (27 families) were given just days to leave their ancestral homes. The promised new housing did not exist, forcing them to live in tents on the sea ice for months, in the dead of the Arctic winter, under lethal climatic conditions.
But the violence wasn’t merely physical. That area, Uummannaq, was the community’s spiritual heart and richest hunting ground. By moving them, the Americans and Danes didn’t just take their homes; they stripped them of their ability to sustain themselves, transforming proud hunters into welfare-dependent subjects. The Danish Supreme Court only recognized the illegality of the act in 2003.
In January 1968, an American B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed near the base, contaminating the area with plutonium. For years, civilian workers hired to clean up the site fell ill with cancer and skin diseases. They lacked adequate protection. Denmark had always denied hosting nuclear weapons, despite appearing to be secretly aware of them. Only in 1995, after years of legal battles, did the State grant an ex gratia payment (without admission of guilt) of 50,000 kroner to the survivors.
The Cost of Trauma: Suicide and Social Crisis
The pattern is clear. Neither Denmark nor the United States has ever treated Greenlanders as subjects to negotiate with, but as objects to administer. This has exacted a price that is still being paid today. Greenland has the highest suicide rate in the world—oscillating between 70 and 80 cases per 100,000 inhabitants (compared to a European average of 11). Other statistics speak of substance abuse, domestic violence, and depression. These are not ‘Inuit cultural traits,’ but symptoms of unresolved historical trauma. Psychological studies directly link the forced urbanization of the 1960s to the explosion in youth suicide rates. Cultural eradication disintegrated both the society and its members.
Beyond Trump: The Future of Greenlandic Independence
However, it would be a mistake to stop at victimhood. Trauma also generated anger, and anger transformed into politics. Since the introduction of Home Rule in 1979, and especially since the 2009 Self-Government Act, Greenland has initiated a process of real decolonization. Greenlandic (Kalaallisut) is now the sole official language.
The crucial knot remains economic: Denmark still transfers about 3.9 billion kroner a year (roughly $600 million)—the so-called Block Grant—which covers half of Greenland’s public budget. The question is no longer whether Greenlanders want self-determination. The question is how to build the material conditions to achieve it.
When Donald Trump, in 2019 and again today, speaks of “buying” or taking Greenland, the Danish reaction is one of moral outrage: how dare he treat a people like merchandise? But is Denmark really in a position to lecture anyone?
The point isn’t that Trump is right—he isn’t. Greenlanders have always rejected him firmly: “We don’t want to be Danish, we don’t want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic,” declared former Premier Múte Egede. The problem is that the debate over Greenland still takes place between powers that want to control it, while those who live there remain on the margins of the conversation.
I write this as a European, and I would be happy if an independent Greenland chose a partnership with Europe. But it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that this hope also contains self-interest: Greenland’s rare earths, its strategic Arctic position, the control of northern shipping routes. Europe, too, wants something from Greenland.
When Greenlanders finally choose who to negotiate their economic independence with, will they be treated as partners or suppliers? Will they be political subjects or a territory to be administered?
After three centuries of colonialism, that is the only question that matters.