When Donald Trump first supplied to purchase Greenland in 2019, he was extensively ridiculed and nothing a lot got here of it, aside from a cancelled state go to to Denmark. Quick ahead six years and Trump’s renewed “bid” for the world’s largest island is again on the desk.
And with renewed vigour at that. In an interview on January 7, the incoming US president refused to rule out using power to take possession of Greenland and he dispatched his son, Don Jr, “and various representatives” there on January 8, 2025, to underline his seriousness. With Elon Musk on board as properly, cash might not be an impediment to any deal that Trump envisages.
Trump shouldn’t be the primary US politician to attempt to purchase Greenland. The earliest documented try to amass the island goes again to 1868.
The final critical pre-Trump effort is that by President Harry S. Truman’s authorities in 1946. Trump’s renewed curiosity in Greenland thus stands in a protracted custom of American efforts of territorial growth.
Even with out this historic background, Trump’s newest bid is much less irrational in the present day than it could have appeared again in 2019. On the one hand, Greenland is exceptionally wealthy in so-called “critical minerals”. In line with a 2024 report within the Economist, the island has identified deposits of 43 of fifty of those minerals. In line with the US Division of Vitality, these minerals are important for “technologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy” and have “a high risk of supply chain disruption”.
The latter definitely is a sound concern provided that China – a key provider of a number of essential minerals to international markets – has been rising restrictions on its exports as a part of an ongoing commerce conflict with the US. Entry to Greenland’s assets would give Washington extra provide chain safety and restrict any leverage that China may to convey to bear.
Strategic worth
Greenland’s strategic location additionally makes it precious to the US. An current US base, Pituffik Area Base, is essential to US missile early warning and defence and performs a essential function in house surveillance. Future growth of the bottom may additionally improve US capabilities to watch Russian naval actions within the Arctic Ocean and the north Atlantic.
US sovereignty over Greenland, if Trump’s deal involves move, would additionally successfully forestall any strikes by rivals, particularly China, to get a foothold on the island. This can be much less of a priority if Greenland stays a part of Nato member Denmark which has stored the island economically afloat with an annual grant of round US$500 million (£407 million).
There’s a rising independence motion in Greenland.
Greenland’s independence – assist for which has been steadily rising – may open the door to extra, and fewer regulated, overseas funding. On this case, China is seen as notably eager to step in ought to the chance come up.
Add to that rising safety cooperation between Russia and China and the truth that Russia has typically grow to be extra militarily aggressive, and Trump’s case seems but extra credible. Neither is he the one one to have raised the alarm bells: Canada, Denmark and Norway have all not too long ago pushed again in opposition to an rising Russian and Chinese language footprint within the Arctic.
So, the issue with Trump’s proposal shouldn’t be that it’s primarily based on a flawed prognosis of the underlying subject it tries to deal with. Rising Russian and Chinese language affect within the Arctic area generally is a safety downside at a time of rising geopolitical rivalry. On this context, Greenland undeniably poses a selected and vital safety vulnerability for the US.
The failings in Trump’s plan
The issue is Trump’s “America first” tunnel imaginative and prescient of in search of an answer. Insisting that he desires Greenland and that he’ll get it – even when which means distinctive tariffs on Danish exports (assume Novo Nordisk’s weightloss medicine) or using power.
Predictably, Greenland and Denmark rejected the brand new “offer”. And key allies, together with France and Germany, rushed to their ally’s defence – figuratively for now.
Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock
Moderately than strengthening US safety, Trump is arguably successfully weakening it by, but once more, undermining the western alliance. Not solely does the irony of doing so within the north Atlantic look like misplaced on Trump. But it surely additionally appears that there’s an much more elementary downside at work right here in that this sort of nineteenth century-style territorial expansionism displays Trump’s isolationist impulses.
“Incorporating” Greenland into the US would probably insulate Washington from the disruption of essential mineral provide chains and maintain Russia and China at bay. And signalling that he’ll do it no matter the associated fee is a sign that, past the form of bluster and bombast that’s usually related to Trump, his strategy to overseas coverage will rapidly get rid of any gloves.
Moderately than investing in strengthening safety cooperation with Denmark and the remainder of its Nato and European allies to face down Russia and China within the Arctic and past, Trump and his crew might properly assume that the US can get away with this. On condition that what’s at stake listed below are relations with the US’s hitherto closest allies, this is a gigantic, and unwarranted, gamble.
No nice energy in historical past has been capable of go it alone endlessly – and even taking possession of Greenland, in some way, is unlikely to alter this.
