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Danes consider America to be a greater danger that North Korea or Iran, a survey has suggested
Almost half of Danes surveyed consider the US a “threat” to their country, a YouGov poll has suggested.
The YouGov survey, the results of which were published by the Guardian on Friday, was undertaken amid growing tensions between Copenhagen and Washington over US President Donald Trump’s proposal to make Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, part of America.
According to the poll, 46% of Danes consider the US to be either “a very big threat” or “a fairly big threat.”
The figure suggests that people living in the NATO and EU member state are more concerned about the US than they are about North Korea or Iran, deemed a threat by 44% and 40% or respondents, respectively.
However, Russia continues to top the list of the fears of the Danish public, with 86% of those surveyed calling it a danger to their country.
As part of the same poll, 78% of respondents said they would oppose Greenland being sold to America, with 72% insisting that the decision about joining the US should be made by the 57,000 residents of the Arctic island rather than Denmark.
Another survey conducted by the Danish pollster Verian earlier this week suggested that only 6% of Greenlanders want to become Americans. It contradicted the results of an earlier study by the US company Patriot Polling, which claimed that 57% of the people on the island supported joining the US.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview on Sirius XM’s The Megyn Kelly Show on Thursday, that Trump’s aspiration to acquire Greenland is “not a joke.”
“I know it is a delicate topic for Denmark, but it is again a national interest item for the US,” he said.
The Arctic region will become “critical” for shipping in the coming years and Washington needs control over Greenland in order to prevent China from establishing itself on the world’s largest island, he claimed.
