The island of Greenland isn’t on the market, but that’s never stopped U.S. President-elect Donald Trump from trying to acquire the prime piece of real estate.
Trump first floated the idea of purchasing the strategically situated and mineral-rich island—an autonomous territory of Denmark—back in 2019, but his suggestion was shot down by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. As the former U.S. leader prepares to return to the Oval Office on Jan. 20, he has renewed his call to acquire the island—and this time around, he has hinted that he could take even more drastic measures to do so.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote in a statement last month announcing his pick to become the next ambassador to Denmark.
Like before, both Greenland and Denmark have rebuked the president-elect’s appeal and stressed that the island is not up for sale. But that did little to deter Trump, who only intensified his calls during a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Beyond urging Denmark to “give it [Greenland] up,” citing U.S. national security needs, Trump cast doubt on the country’s legal claim to the territory—without offering any evidence. He also threatened “high-level” tariffs against Denmark if it refuses to cooperate and declined to rule out using military force to seize ownership of the island as well as the Panama Canal, prompting sharp warnings from Germany and France.
That same day, Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., made a visit to Greenland, although Greenlandic officials said that he was not visiting in an official capacity.
The president-elect’s remarks have been met with a mix of outrage, confusion, and dismissal, with outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken characterizing the idea as “obviously one that’s not going to happen.” But some former Trump officials said that the U.S. leader’s interest in Greenland should be understood in the context of a broader reorientation of U.S. foreign policy toward hemispheric defense.
“I think people need to start treating this very seriously as just a strategic reorientation, rather than some kind of vanity project,” said Alexander Gray, a former chief of staff in the first Trump administration’s National Security Council.
“This is a much more traditional way of defining our core security interests,” added Gray, who is now a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council.
Trump isn’t the first U.S. politician to become fixated on Greenland’s strategic potential. William Seward, who served as the U.S. secretary of state under former President Abraham Lincoln, also expressed interest in purchasing Greenland, and former U.S. President Harry Truman proposed buying the island during secretive negotiations in the run-up to the Cold War. The United States also occupied Greenland during World War II while Germany occupied Denmark.
Greenland may seem like an unusual focal point, but it is at the nexus of many of the world’s most urgent geopolitical challenges today: climate change, the scramble for critical resources, and the transformation of trade and shipping. The United States has a large military base in Greenland, and the island’s location makes it an essential part of the U.S. military’s early-warning system for ballistic missiles.
Trump’s interest indicates a “recognition of the growing strategic importance of Greenland and its position in the North Atlantic as a key stepping stone between North America and Europe,” said Rebecca Pincus, the director of the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute. “It’s got a lot of really great attributes that are growing in importance,” she added.
For one, the island is home to ample and undeveloped deposits of the powerful rare earths that underpin advanced weapons systems and many clean energy technologies, although experts stress that there remain many challenges to extraction and production. In the Arctic more broadly, a 2009 U.S. Geological Survey found that the region could contain some 30 percent of the world’s undiscovered gas and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil.
The Arctic has also emerged as a key arena of geopolitical competition as Russia and China seek to expand their economic and military influence there. The two powers have deepened their engagement and cooperation in the region, backed by scores of icebreakers and sweeping investments. In recent years, a Chinese bid to bankroll Greenland’s airports sparked alarm in Washington, which quickly raced to counter the plan.
Thanks to Alaska, the United States is technically already an Arctic nation. But Washington is “definitely playing catch up” in the region, said Malte Humpert, the founder of the Arctic Institute.
While the United States is “still the number one player in the world,” Humpert said, “that’s not the role that it has in the Arctic, and I think that’s really hard to grasp for policymakers in D.C.” He noted that Washington “wants to have a seat at the table.”
Enter Greenland.
The island has, for centuries, been a part of NATO ally Denmark, which still contributes two-thirds of Greenland’s budget revenue. The autonomous territory is now mostly self-ruled—it has its own parliament—although the Danish government still handles most defense and foreign-policy matters. In recent years, the island—home to a population of 57,000 people—has seen a growing independence movement amid tensions with the Danish government. Some Greenlandic officials have expressed their hopes that the territory will ultimately become an independent country.
“We fully recognize that Greenland has its own ambitions,” said Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen while speaking to the press on Jan. 8. “If they materialize, Greenland will become independent, though hardly with an ambition to become a federal state in the United States.”
In a post on X, former Trump National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien suggested that Denmark was not capable of protecting Greenland from geopolitical rivals, which he said was “critical to the defense of the USA.”
“We love the Danes but a couple of additional drones, dogsled teams & inspection ships are not enough to defend Greenland against the Russians & Chinese Communists,” he wrote, adding, “If our great ally Denmark can’t commit to defending the Island, the US will have to step in.”
If Greenland secures its independence from Denmark, then Gray—Trump’s former National Security Council chief of staff—suggested that the United States could step in to counter Russia’s and China’s efforts at influence.
“The question we have to ask is: Given Greenland’s geographic strategic importance to our security, given the critical mineral wealth, when the Greenlanders get independence … do we want Moscow and Beijing waiting for the Greenlanders, or do we want to be there?” he told Foreign Policy. “That’s the ultimate question here.”
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Gray suggested that Washington offer Greenland a Compact of Free Association (COFA), which the United States currently has with Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Under a COFA, the island states have “full independence,” but Washington offers them defense commitments and economic support in exchange for military access, Gray wrote. Such a deal would preserve “Greenland’s sovereignty while protecting it from malign actors,” he added.
For Greenland and Denmark, the issue may be a nonstarter. “Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland. Our future and fight for independence is our business,” Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement posted to social media.
Back in 2019, Trump’s first proposal to purchase Greenland created tension with Denmark, causing Trump to cancel a planned trip to the country after the Danish prime minister rejected his overtures about the island. The two leaders patched things up shortly after, and the Trump administration reestablished a U.S. consulate on the island.
But Trump’s recent remarks appear to have sparked more outrage, with Denmark amending its coat of arms to feature Greenland more prominently in response. The Danish government also ramped up its defense spending for the island, although analysts said that the move had likely been in the works for a while.
“In terms of international relations and how nations deal with one another, buying—that’s just not done anymore,” said Jim Townsend, who served for eight years as U.S. President Barack Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO.
The Greenlandic people “don’t want to be the 51st state,” added Townsend, who now works at the Center for a New American Security. “They don’t want to be an appendage of the United States.”
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