Loading summary
Transcript13 lines
- [00:03]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
- [00:08]
Interviewer 1
US Officials are rushing to come up with options for business deals and other ways to step up links to Greenland after President Trump's renewed demand to take over the island. The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland are due to meet with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington next week. Joining us now is Madsvist Friedrichsen, who is executive director for the Arctic Economic Council. Lads, good to have you on the program today. Thank you for your time because we'd like to understand what the view of business is in Greenland about the Trump administration's determination that it wants Greenland to be part of the U.S. yeah, nice.
- [00:49]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
To be here on call. It's very uncertain times and overall you can say that. And this doesn't only go for Greenland, but across the Arctic region. There's a lot of uncertainty at the moment and uncertainty that's poison for any company. I just spoke with a group of companies in Greenland the other day and they said that everything is put on hold at the moment. They're not making any decisions until there's more clarification about their future.
- [01:16]
Interviewer 2
What is the, I suppose how does that affect things like investment, business planning? How do the day to day operations of these companies, I suppose move forward when there's such geopolitical uncertainty?
- [01:29]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
That's a good question. And I think it's important to remember that Greenland is still home to 56,000 people that wakes up every day and go to work. So yes, they will continue life similar to the COVID pandemic being a major disruptor for companies. They were still operating and they will still operate. There are still, you know, uncertainties around, for example, large scale investments. There's certain uncertainties around, you know, where also defense investments, for example. So right now it's just very difficult to plan ahead. The day to day operations is still the same. You know, 97% of Greenland's export is from fish fisheries. Those fishing vessels are still out there fishing. What is interesting though is the US Market is not a particularly big market. It's actually a very, very tiny market for the Greenlandic economy. Europe, China and even Canada is much bigger than the U.S. so some people, not all, but some people do see it as an opportunity though to expand into new markets in the US that's.
- [02:32]
Interviewer 1
Interesting given the kind of comments not ruling out the use of military force. Also, we've had further comments the idea of Greenland being bought by the US or quote some sort of financial arrangement as the US Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested only yesterday. Do you get any sense that Greenlandic businesses might accept some kind of financial.
- [02:57]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
Arrangement with the U.S. i don't think so. I mean, as the Greenlanders have been saying since 2019, when we heard about this the first time the Greenlandic government and businesses said Greenland is not for sale, but it's open for business. There is a strong sense, and this is all the statements both from the private sector and from the public sector, that Greenland belongs to its people. So this idea about a large real estate deal, as President Trump called it in 2019, that's not of any interest to the businesses. They want to decide the future themselves. And that's also what Denmark has stated again and again, and what Greenland has stated again and again.
- [03:39]
Interviewer 2
There have been reports of an influence campaign by the US in Greenland. Do you hear about that from the businesses that you work with or is there a sense that those efforts are continuing?
- [03:53]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
It's a good question. And it goes back to. Let me just zoom out briefly for the broad Arctic. There are hyper threats across the Arctic. There's talks about Chinese, Russia and et cetera, other outside nations influencing and wanting to get into the Arctic. The benefit of the Arctic is that we are quite small communities across the whole region. There are 4 million people living there, 10% of which are indigenous. Which means it's very easy to see if suddenly someone from outside is trying to influence someone. We have seen, however, we have seen some attempts on digital manipulation or online manipulation of people. We saw some AI videos being spread a few years ago. We have seen some strange posts. We saw there was a fake, a fake document being shared that was supposed to look like it came from, from the Greenlandic government. It was completely made up. So we have seen some of sense, but we don't know what countries are behind it.
- [04:51]
Interviewer 1
Interesting. What is your view then of what you want to see next and what businesses want to see next? There is this foreign ministers meeting that's happening next week that surely must be quite important. How do you think that the Danish government and indeed the eu, what should they be doing?
- [05:11]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
So. So first, I mean, yeah, we have to turn off this fire that is on at the moment. And we also need to remain calm and not to panic. And I think this is quite important right now that we still engage in the dialogue and we continue to look further ahead. We have over the past years already seen massive investments coming from particularly Denmark has invested massively in, for example, subsea fiber optic cables, deep sea ports, expansion of ports, et cetera, expansion of one ways. So in the past few Denmark has invested massively in Greenland. We are also seeing growing interest from the European Union and I think this will continue. The European Union will update their Arctic policy in the coming months and I'm sure security will play a role there. And also this whole idea about dual use, and I think also we will, at least the companies are asking for this. Okay. If you are investing more in defense, let's try to make sure it also benefit the communities there. So whatever we do in the Arctic, it has to have at least a dual use, quite often also a triple use. The Greenlandic economy is still massively challenged. There's 56,000 people. They expect to be 46,000 people by 2050. GDP growth is rather low and there is some structural challenges around a skilled workforce. So Greenland has a lot of challenges when it comes to be an attractive investment environment, not only because of US interest. So we have to deal with that long term.
- [06:43]
Interviewer 1
A last thought, if you would. What I hear and read about Greenland is that there has been an attempt to be open with the US in terms of trying to get business deals. Why do you think there hasn't been more interest and more advancement, let's say, in mining, in other resources? We know that Greenland is rich in mining resources, but actually getting them out of the ground, there's not that much going going on to do that with that openness. What do you think has been the hindrance so far to doing more business between the US and Greenland?
- [07:21]
Madsvist Friedrichsen
And that's exactly what the companies are asking themselves as well. So there's currently one active mine, one open mine in Greenland. There are more than around 50 or 100 mines that could open if they just get an investor. We have seen some mining activity from the US in the south of Greenland the past year, but that's also the first time there's been so much activity. I think a lot of it comes down that this is a political wish. I don't believe that the business, society or community in the US has this interest in Greenland. This is from the top of the political level. And that also is reflected that it's very hard to tell companies where to go and invest if there is not a good investment case. Generally, Greenland is challenged by lack of infrastructure, small population. So economy of scale is a challenge. But it does have opportunities, within example tourism. And we have seen a few US investors, for example, investing in hotels in Greenland, but it's at a very, very small level. But this is not only about the US not investing too much in Greenland. This is international companies and investors around the world. A lot of people are talking about Greenland. Not too many people are investing in Greenland. And this is not helping what is happening at the moment.