August 21, 2019

Sven Sakkov to ERR: Buying Greenland Would Have Been Appropriate in the 19th Century

Sven Sakkov, Director of ICDS, considered US President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel a state visit due to Denmark’s refusal to sell Greenland very impolite. According to him, this kind of behaviour fits into the 19th century.

“In the context of the 19th century, it would have been a perfectly appropriate and strategically wise move. Nowadays, this is not how things are handled. The Danish Prime Minister also said that this decision is up to the people of Greenland. Greenland is an autonomous part of Denmark. We all do understand that the time when countries and nations were bought is gone forever,” Sakkov commented on Trump’s statements on Greenland on ETV (ERR, Estonian Public Broadcasting) on 21 August.

According to Sakkov, Trump may have been trying to distract from the bad messages about the economy. Or he just wanted to go down in history as a big and strategic buyer of lands, he suggested.

Watch the full interview in Estonian in ERR.