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US and European mining companies need to hurry up and invest in Greenland. Otherwise, they must help exploit the minerals from China.
“We want to develop the business sector and diversify it. It requires external investment,” Greenland’s Minister of Business and Mineral Resources Naaja Nathanielsen told the Financial Times.
When asked about turning their eyes to China, she replied: “We want to partner with European and American partners. But if they don’t show up, I think we need to see elsewhere.”
The comments illustrate Greenland’s desire to get Western help in expanding the mining and tourism economy.
Greenland has large but rather inaccessible deposits of minerals, including gold and copper, and is located in a geopolitical area of the Arctic Circle.
Nathanielsen said the current memorandum of understanding with the United States on mineral development — signed during Donald Trump’s first presidency — is coming to an end, with Greenland trying to see if Washington wanted to update it during the Biden administration.
Trump repeatedly insisted that the US would potentially forcefully take over Greenland, Denmark’s semi-autonomous territory.
“We hope that the Trump administration is willing to interact with Greenland about the development of the mineral sector.
Nathanielsen told FT that he found Trump’s threat to control Greenland “disrespectful and offensive.” Her comments underscore the increasing anger the Greenlanders felt with Trump’s aggressive approach to the island of 57,000.
She said despite Trump’s rhetoric, there was little interest from China in the mining trade. Currently, Greenland has only two Chinese mining companies, both of which are minority shareholders in inactive projects. She speculated that Chinese investors may be restrained because they don’t want “to taunt anything.”
Her comments come when she welcomed the award of the first license under a new mining code to Danish French groups to extract anorsosites, a mineral used in the fiberglass industry.
According to Klaus Stoltenborg, CEO of Greenland’s Anorsosite Mines, the 150 million euro mining project in western Greenland aims to begin construction soon next year.
The company’s supporters include the Greenland Pension Fund, the Danish bank Albejan’s Landsbank, and French mining group Jean Bourg.
Greenland has only two operating mines that produce gold and anal membranes, but production has not started in two more mining licensed mines.
Nathanielsen said Nuuk’s new four-party coalition government “promising first and foremost to create the development of Greenland and Greenlander,” and that he prefers to work with “like-minded partners with allies.”
However, she added that Greenland “struggles to find our footing” amid the changing nature of the Western Alliance.
“What do we see in the new world order? In these terms, Chinese investment is of course problematic, but to some extent American,” she said. “What is the purpose of that? [the US investments]? ”
Nathanielsen is a “good fit” for Greenland, as the EU itself lacked most of the minerals needed.
