APK (Denmark) & APL (USA): Solidarity with the Greenlandic people against all imperialism
Joint statement of the Workers’ Communist Party (Denmark) and the American Party of Labor (USA)–
US President Donald Trump is threatening to use both military and economic power to take control over Greenland. This is an outrageous insult to the Greenlandic people, the Inuit, and their right under international law to self-determination of their country, Kalaallit Nunaat, and to determine their own future. And it has caused their anger.
This is an aggressive act by the world’s strongest imperialist power to expand its territory in order to protect and maintain its world domination. It is a new dangerous step in the struggle between the imperialist powers — USA, Russia, China, and the EU — for control of the Arctic, with its geopolitical strategic importance.
Greenland is today under the supremacy of Danish imperialism as a former colony. Replacing Danish imperialism with US imperialism or EU/NATO is not, as Trump claims, the path to prosperity and freedom, but the sure path to continued oppression and domination. The words of the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen that the Greenlandic people can become masters in their own house under the Danish commonwealth are nothing more than embellishment of continued Danish supremacy. When the EU talks about inviolable sovereignty, it is Danish and European imperialism that the EU supports, not Greenland, which has left the EU.
The rampant rearmament and militarization of the Arctic and Greenland, with increased Danish and American presence and military bases, increases tensions throughout the region. It is paid for by increased pressure on the American, Greenlandic, and Danish working class with low wages, inflation, and cuts to the public sector in favor of increasing military spending. The Trump administration will further favor the war industry. In Denmark, the government is already bowing meekly to Trump’s demands with the decision to spend billions more (DKK 15 billion) on rearmament in the Arctic.
Trump and NATO are pushing further to increase military budgets at the expense of people’s living conditions. We must strengthen the demand for Denmark out of NATO in the working-class anti-imperialist movement.
When US President Donald Trump threatens Denmark, one of his close NATO allies, with the use of military force if they don’t comply, it shows how an imperialist alliance can fracture when it is in the interest of the strongest power. By their very nature, imperialist alliances are only temporary; though they can last for decades, they only last as long as it serves the interests of the strongest power to utilize its hegemony.
Quite the opposite is true of working-class alliances. Whether it’s the American, Greenlandic, or Danish working class, we have common fundamental interests in freeing ourselves from the tyranny of capital. Working-class alliances are mutually beneficial to all parties, based on mutual respect and genuine solidarity with each other, and they strengthen the common struggle of the working class and peoples.
We oppose any nationalist attempt to pit the peoples and working class of our respective countries against each other to defend imperial interests. We call to oppose Trump’s claims on Greenland and the Danish government’s and EU’s machinations to maintain their control.
We call for solidarity and support for the right of the Greenlandic working class and people to independence and to determine their own future in the struggle against all imperialism. We call for strengthening the class struggle in our countries for freedom, peace, and international solidarity.
Workers’ Communist Party, Denmark (APK)
American Party of Labor (APL)
Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties and Organizations (ICMLPO)