Greenland has said it does not need medical assistance from other countries, after Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory he wants to acquire.
The US president said he would dispatch the vessel in a social media post on Saturday, claiming that Greenlanders were not getting the healthcare they needed.
“Working with the fantastic Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, we are going to send a great hospital boat to Greenland to take care of the many people who are sick, and not being taken care of there,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“It’s on the way!!!” he added.
His offer, however, was politely rejected by Nuuk.
“That will be ‘no thanks’ from us,” Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Greenlandic prime minister, wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday.
“President Trump’s idea to send a US hospital ship here to Greenland has been duly noted. But we have a public health system where care is free for citizens,” he said.
Trump has said repeatedly that the US needs to acquire Greenland for national security reasons, and appointed Landry as US special envoy to the vast, mineral-rich Arctic island in December.
In Greenland, as in Denmark, access to healthcare is free at the point of use and funded by the taxpayer. Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, responded to Trump’s social post by defending her country’s system.
Writing on Facebook, Frederiksen said she was “happy to live in a country where there is free and equal access to health for all. Where it’s not insurances and wealth that determine whether you get proper treatment.”
She added that Greenland had “the same approach” as Denmark.
Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish defence minister, also rejected Trump’s claim that people in Greenland were being denied medical treatment.
“The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs,” he told the Danish broadcaster DR. “They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark. So it’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in Greenland.”
Lund Poulsen added: “Trump is constantly tweeting about Greenland. So this is undoubtedly an expression of the new normal that has taken hold in international politics.”
There are six hospitals in Greenland serving a population of fewer than 60,000 people. In early February, the territory’s government signed an agreement with Copenhagen to improve Greenlandic patients’ access to treatment in hospitals in Denmark.
Earlier on Saturday, Denmark’s military coastguard said it had evacuated a crew member of a US submarine off the coast of Greenland after the sailor requested urgent medical attention.
The Danish Joint Arctic Command said on its Facebook page the crew member had been retrieved by helicopter about 7 nautical miles off the coast of Greenland’s capital, Nuuk, and transferred to a hospital in the city.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump’s repeatedly expressed desire to control Greenland has put the US relationship with Denmark and its other Nato allies under significant strain.
Last week, King Frederik of Denmark paid his second visit to Greenland in the space of 12 months in an attempt to demonstrate unity with the territory in the face of Trump’s overtures.
The US president backed down on earlier threats to seize Greenland unilaterally after striking a “framework” deal in January with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, to ensure greater US influence.
However, Frederiksen and the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said at the Munich security conference this month they feared the US was still interested in taking control of the island.
Frederiksen said pressure from the US was “unacceptable” and “outrageous”, while Nielsen said his country had never before felt threatened in such a way.
Agence France-Presse and Associated Press contributed to this report.
