The snow-dusted city of Sisimiut, sitting just north of the Arctic Circle, feels largely devoid of US influence.
This is Greenland’s second largest city, but save for a lone Burger King there are no large chains on the main street.
No Starbucks, no MacDonald’s, no Apple store. Instead you’ll find a local cafe illuminated by strip lighting, a children’s playground with a mini ski slope, and locals driving ATVs through the icy streets.
Yet, despite the quiet resistance to US culture – not to mention months of living under President Donald Trump’s increasingly erratic threats of a takeover – Sisimiut locals feel surprisingly warmly towards America.
One man who had lived in the city his whole life tells The Independent: “It’s not America that is scary to us, it is the president. This is not about the American people.”
Another Sisimiut local who works with children in the city agrees: “It’s the president and the rich people in America who are the problem.”
This small city on the west coast of Greenland, home to around 5,500 people, has been spared of much of the attention shone on the capital Nuuk over the past couple of weeks, with residents quietly going about their daily lives.
Usha Vance, wife of JD Vance, had planned to visit Sisimiut on her trip to Greenland in March last year to attend the famous Avannaata Qimussersua dogsled race and visit cultural sites, but made a last-minute alteration to her plan and headed straight from Nuuk to the American Pituffik Space Base in the remote northwest of Greenland.
This abrupt change of schedule was partly attributed to a planned protest in which locals said they would turn their backs on the American visitor in silent resistance to the Trump administration’s attempts to annex the territory.
When Nuuk held protests on 17 January, Sisimiut held a smaller version with residents gathering in the town centre holding Greenlandic flags and “Stop Trump” signs.
America’s military relationship with Greenland stretches back to the Second World War, and today the United States retains that one base, Pituffik, where the US Department of Defense says around 130 active members of the US military are permanently stationed.
Former Greenland MP Tillie Martinussen, who lives in Nuuk, tells The Independent that her father worked on the US base in Pituffik in the 1970s back when it was called Thule (the name was changed in 2023). “He loved Americans,” she says.
Ms Martinussen says she respected the Americans who were working at the Pituffik base in often brutally harsh conditions.
“You had to be incredibly badass to work at Thule,” she said. “You can go outside in the cold and die because your lungs are freezing in minus 50 degrees Celsius. In the winter there, you sometimes have storms that are so massive and so long that you will have three or four days where nobody can go outside.”
The former politician says she has visited the United States around 18 times, most often to the South, and that she is incredibly fond of America and the American people.
She says: “I grew up pledging allegiance first to my own people – to Greenland – secondly, the Queen of Denmark (now the king), and then third to the American president.
“This [Donald Trump] is the only president I’ve ever criticised in any way.
“There are so many things about America that I love. It’s the birthplace of JFK and Martin Luther King – that’s beautiful. And I’m fascinated by the space programme.
“I love Americans, they’re so open and funny.”
But, she adds: “I still don’t want to be a part of America at all. At all.”
Ms Martinussen says she finds it hard to contain her anger that Trump is so focused on Greenland rather than caring about his own people and taking care of ordinary Americans.
“Give people the Epstein files. Stop shooting your own citizens in the face,” she says. “Stop bullying the world. You’re ruining it for your citizens.”
Paarnannguaq Tiitussen, a Nuuk resident who owns a traditional Arctic jewellery store in the city, says Greenlanders do not have a problem with America itself, but feel they have the right to make decisions themselves.
“We need a relationship with America – and we already have a relationship with America – but it should to be on our terms,” she says.
Kristina Spohr, professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), says it’s not surprising that some Greenlanders feel a warmth towards Americans as there is an ancient cultural and historical link, with Inuit people still living in Arctic Alaska.
“But it doesn’t mean that they want to be led by an American president, or a mining company from the United States, or a Louisiana governor,” she added.
She points out that because Greenland Inuits have associated with a European power rather than an American one, their culture has been able to survive, compared to indigenous groups in the United States.
Following talks with Nato secretary general Mark Rutte last week, Trump claimed there was a “framework” for a future Greenland deal, but it is not clear what had been agreed.
Both Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen have said there are “red lines” that cannot be crossed, and that includes Greenland’s sovereignty.
The US military presence in Greenland dates back to an agreement that allowed America to establish military bases on the Arctic island following the Nazi occupation of Denmark in 1940.
Through the Second World War and Cold War, the US assumed the role of defender of the island, and Ms Martinussen explains that many Greenlanders viewed the American soldiers as heroes.
She says she remembers as a little girl her grandmother telling her about the Americans dropping food and presents, and she loved her grandparents giving her Wrigley’s gum that came from the States.
Ms Martinussen adds: “I’m so sad that so many children are going to grow up now and think America is the enemy, or at least they can’t be trusted.
“I can’t believe that Donald Trump is dismantling everything.”
