International journalists and camera crews have been arriving in Nuuk, Greenland, for several weeks to ask residents for their thoughts on what the Associated Press described as a political crisis that has turned the Arctic island into a geopolitical hot spot.
The attention centers on President Donald Trump’s insistence that he wants the United States to control Greenland, while Greenlanders say it is not for sale. Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, and Denmark’s prime minister has warned that if the U.S. tries to take Greenland by force, it could potentially spell the end of NATO.
In Nuuk, residents have said the island is near the top of the Western news agenda, and locals described signs of how consistently reporters are at work. The Associated Press reported that journalists stand every few meters along a small central shopping street, approaching people for comments for live broadcasts or pre-recorded stand-ups.
Scores of journalists have come from outlets including The Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, the BBC and Al Jazeera, along with reporters from Scandinavian countries and Japan. The AP said the crews film Nuuk’s multicolored houses, snowcapped hills and freezing fjords, including places where locals go out in small boats to hunt seals and fish—but that they must fit recording into limited winter daylight, with the sun rising after 11 a.m. and setting around 4 p.m., leaving about five hours of daylight.
Local politicians and community leaders told the AP they were overwhelmed with interview requests. Juno Berthelsen, an MP for the Naleraq opposition party that campaigns for independence in the Greenlandic parliament, characterized the new wave as “round two,” referring to a previous burst of global interest after Trump’s first statements in 2025 that he wanted to control Greenland.
Berthelsen said he had done multiple interviews a day for two weeks, and that “I’m getting a bit used to it.” The AP said the small size of Nuuk makes repeat contact likely: it reported that Nuuk residents sometimes face multiple requests on the same day, with business owners approached by different organizations and sometimes getting up to 14 interviews in a day.
The AP reported that Greenland’s population is around 57,000 people, with about 20,000 living in Nuuk, and that residents said people grow tired when more and more journalists ask the same questions again and again. Greenlanders who spoke to the AP suggested they want the world to know that it is up to Greenlanders to decide their own future.
Maya Martinsen, 21, told the AP that it was “just weird how obsessed he is with Greenland.” She said Trump was “basically lying about what he wants out of Greenland,” and that he was using the pretext of boosting American security to try to take control of “the oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.” She added that the Americans “only see what they can get out of Greenland and not what it actually is,” and said, “it’s home,” saying Greenland “has beautiful nature and lovely people” and that “It’s just home to me.”
The AP reported that Trump has argued repeatedly that U.S. control of Greenland is needed for national security, and has sought to justify his calls for a takeover by repeatedly claiming China and Russia have designs on Greenland, which the AP said he described as holding vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.