'Go home USA': Greenlanders protest new American consulate as PM snubs opening

Thursday’s opening of a new U.S. consulate in Greenland‘s capital city of Nuuk did not go well for the Americans, as protesters swamped the street, according to video posted by Orla Joelsen, a native Greenlander and prison official in Nuuk.

“Go home USA!” participants could be heard chanting.

At least one protester held up a sign that read, “Greenland is not for sale!”

It’s been a difficult week for Americans in Nuuk.

The Prime Minister of Greenland, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said he would not attend Thursday’s opening of the new consulate.

“We haven’t made a decision in principle, but I won’t participate,” the prime minister told the Greenlandic news outlet Sermitsiaq, according to a Google translation.

President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry, touched down in Nuuk on Sunday, saying he arrived “simply to build relationships,” and to “see if there are opportunities” to expand them.

His appeal to several young Greenlanders, free chocolate chip cookies if they traveled to visit him, was met with a poor response.

“If you come to Louisiana,” Governor Landry said, “and you come to the governor’s mansion — all the chocolate chip cookies you can eat.”

But Prime Minister Nielsen on Monday said Greenland would not become part of the U.S., “no matter how many ‘chocolate cookies’ we get,” according to the Times-Picayune.

The relationship between Greenland and the United States has been tense since President Donald Trump began his campaign to have the U.S. take over the autonomous territory that is part of Denmark. Trump at times has threatened to use force to secure Greenland, even saying he would do so the “easy way” or “the hard way.”

“We’re not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland, and that’s what they’re gonna do if we don’t,” Trump said in January. “So we’re gonna be doing something with Greenland, either the nice way or the more difficult way.”