Hundreds of thousands sign petition to buy California for Denmark

Is California for sale? A lighthearted petition to buy the state of California for Denmark has so far attracted more than 200,000 signatures in response to US President Donald Trump’s talk about taking control of Greenland.

Greenland, a vast and mineral-rich Arctic island, is a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, a US ally and fellow member of the NATO military alliance.

“Have you ever looked at a map and thought, ‘You know what Denmark needs? More sunshine, palm trees and roller skates’,” the petition asks. “Well, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make that dream a reality. Let’s buy California from Donald Trump!”

The petition organisers suggest renaming Disneyland in Southern California as Hans Christian Andersenland. Credit: Joshua Sudock

The petition organisers even have their own plans for Disneyland in Southern California: “We’ll rename it Hans Christian Andersenland. Mickey Mouse in a Viking helmet? Yes, please.”

Xavier Dutoit, the petition’s organiser, got the idea last month while on holiday in the Philippines. He overheard an American tourist loudly discussing Trump’s Greenland pitch.

“That American didn’t seem to grasp how unhinged and absurd it was for any country’s president – especially in a stable democracy that the USA claims to be – to offer or threaten to take over another sovereign country’s territory,” Dutoit wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

While Dutoit is not Danish – he is Swiss-French – he consulted a multinational group of friends who are helping him, including Kenneth Haar, who is Danish and lives in Copenhagen.

“The Trump-Greenland issue is, by far, the biggest political issue in this country at the moment,” Haar told AP in a Zoom interview. “It is considered a very depressing and a very dangerous situation.”

In 2019, Trump scrapped a trip to Denmark, blaming Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for making a “nasty” statement when she rejected his first-term idea of buying Greenland as an absurdity.

Before taking office again in January, Trump said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of Greenland, calling it vital to US national security, and last month his son visited the island.

Greenland’s prime minister, Múte B. Egede, shot back: “Greenland is for the Greenlandic people. We do not want to be Danish, we do not want to be American. We want to be Greenlandic.”

Haar said California’s appeal to Danes was obvious, from its towering mountains to its sunny beaches.

“We have none of that here,” he said. “Denmark is a pretty flat country with a pretty boring climate.”

The petition notes that Trump isn’t a fan of the Golden State. Last year, he called it “Paradise Lost” and he regularly derides Governor Gavin Newsom with the nickname “Newscum”.

But of course, every petition needs some fine print, way down at the bottom:

“Disclaimer: This campaign is 100% real … in our dreams.”

AP

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