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They came to Yellowknife to talk about “Resilience in the Arctic” but ambassadors from five nordic countries could not escape Donald Trump.
Just minutes before the diplomats took to the stage for a news conference on Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. president announced on social media he and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte had reached the outline of a deal on Greenland and “the entire Arctic region.”
There are no details yet on what that deal might entail, but it does appear to mean Trump’s threatened tariffs against countries opposed to American control of Greenland will now not go ahead.
Trump has been insisting for months that the United States must control Greenland, but only this week did he back off threats to use force to obtain the self-governing Danish territory.
Nikolaj Harris, Denmark’s ambassador to Canada, declined to comment directly on the development.
“I didn’t have the chance to follow because we have been very busy discussing resilience and security in the Arctic, the last four hours,” Harris said, at the Yellowknife news conference.
But he added Denmark was glad to see protests pop up across Europe and in Nunavut, opposing U.S. control of Greenland.
“It’s always nice to see an expression of solidarity and support,” he said.
‘Not only defence and military capabilities’
Though the Greenland question hung over proceedings Wednesday, the diplomats, representing Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, joined by Yellowknife Mayor Ben Hendriksen, were there to talk about a broader set of pan-Arctic issues, including climate change, economic development and emergency preparedness.
They also met with leaders from Indigenous, municipal and territorial governments.
“We must look at security broadly,” Harris said. “Security is not only defence and military capabilities.”
Finnish Ambassador Hanna-Leena Korteniemi said her country has been “building this whole of society model for, I would say, a century.”
Korteniemi said Finland has developed institutions that include civil society, the business sector and the broader public in preparation for emergencies, including what she called “hybrid threats,” citing recent incidents of fibre optic cable cuts in the Baltic Sea.
“It aims at keeping all of our functions running, no matter what, and I want to say that we don’t want to be alarmist, but we need to be prepared for any situation,” she said.
Hendriksen said Canada can learn from its Arctic neighbours.
“There’s things they can bring to us, from transportation, energy, housing, all of these different perspectives that are important for Canadians, important to Yellowknifers, and important to northerners,” he said.
Ambassadors from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland met with officials from Indigenous, municipal and territorial governments to talk about security, sovereignty, trade and other pan-Arctic issues.
