President Trump’s reawakened appetite for Greenland, the world’s largest island and a Danish territory, has startled many Americans. The new president has not ruled out the use of high tariffs or even armed force if the Danes decline to sell it to the United States. Trump’s interest has in fact been rekindled from his first term in the White House. Then, too, he offered to buy it, but the interest he expressed in 2019 fell by the wayside amid other issues. Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, also poured cold water on the idea, both then and today.
Among other surprising statements, the new American president has also included Canada and the Panama Canal in his wish list. He toyed with the use of “economic force” to compel Canada to enter US statehood. In his inaugural address, Trump voiced the use of strongman tactics to bring the Panama Canal back under US sovereignty. (Washington’s interest in construction of the ocean passage dates back to the early twentieth century, and President Jimmy Carter’s 1977 treaties transferred the isthmian canal to the Panamanian government in 1999.) Trump has accused Panama of price gouging against US shipping and of yielding control to China.
Post–Cold War superpower rivalries have magnified American concerns about foreign breaches of US spheres of influence in the North Atlantic and Arctic as well as in Western Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East. Russia’s 2014 absorption of Crimea and 2022 invasion into Ukraine, plus China’s ongoing threats to Taiwan’s independence, along with Sino-Russian cooperation in the Arctic and even joint naval exercises off Japan, have rattled the international order. America, China, and Russia all seek to expand and safeguard their spheres, not unlike nineteenth-century European imperialism.
Since World War II, the Pentagon has pushed further outward around the globe to establish bases to protect the American homeland at greater distance. Those frontiers are facing Russian and Chinese challenges. Trump’s territorial-expansion ideas represent an updated interpretation of the nation’s defensive posture after 1945.
Denmark and NATO
Washington’s interest in Greenland goes back to the nineteenth century, and it resurfaced at the beginning of the Cold War. President Harry Truman secretly offered to buy Greenland in 1950, ignoring Denmark’s not-for-sale sign. As in today’s world, Truman saw the strategic value of Greenland for the defense of the Arctic and North Atlantic to ensure an independent and democratic Europe free from Soviet domination. Then, as now, the Danes showed no desire in selling their centuries-held possession. Washington dropped the idea and applied no pressure on its longtime Danish ally. Denmark too is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
NATO membership offered Demark security from Soviet threats. The Atlantic alliance’s guarantees also extend to Greenland. On its own, Denmark—a nation of five million—cannot defeat Russian aggression. Even with a modern, well-trained, and well-armed military, it cannot defend its lightly populated island protectorate or the Arctic without a NATO backed by the United States. The NATO allies, in return, need Denmark and its Nordic neighbors to secure the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, and the Arctic region.
Greenland and the United States already maintain defense ties that grant the Pentagon a space base at Pituffik (formerly Thule), 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The Pentagon stations radar antennae at the installation as part of the American early warning system for ballistic missiles bound for US soil from Russia. The base also houses space surveillance capabilities and anti-missile defenses.
Greenland’s treasures
Denmark’s sale of overseas lands would not be without precedent. In 1917, the kingdom sold the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John) to the United States because its impoverished Caribbean holdings needed extensive economic investments. The Woodrow Wilson administration paid $25 million in gold coin. By purchasing the Danish West Indies, Washington sought to protect the Panama Canal from foreign powers operating in the Caribbean.
Greenland is not without enticements, including a geostrategic location near the Arctic Circle, abundant natural resources, and expanding shipping lanes. Shrinking ice stands to open shorter transit routes between Asian and European ports—a huge commercial advantage, setting the stage for great-power competition for dominance in the waterways of the high North. Ship traffic has increased 37 percent in the past decade. China has shown heightened interest in Greenland, where it has tried to boost its mining endeavors and aspires to new routes through the Arctic region. In November, Beijing and Moscow decided to work together to develop shipping avenues in the Arctic. In 2018, the Pentagon succeeded in blocking Beijing from financing three airports on Greenland.
Thawing ice sheets and glaciers could clear the way for oil and gas exploration and the mining of critical minerals. Rare-earth elements, abundant in Greenland, are essential to a wide range of modern technologies including weapons, smartphones, computers, electric vehicles, wind turbines, medical imaging equipment, batteries, and many others. China possesses a near-monopoly of some of the world’s rare minerals—which places the United States and other countries at a disadvantage in the global high-technology race. Greenland’s harsh climate, lack of infrastructure, and minuscule population do work against extracting the rare earth elements, so substantial investment and government attention would be needed. Trump’s pressure calls could help to wake up financial investors and extractive industries to the urgent task.
There is also genuine merit in the concerns for Greenland’s security from Russian and China’s military power and diplomacy. The United States recognized these fears in its 2024 strategy assessment.
An unclear future
Again, neither Denmark nor self-ruling Greenland is officially interested in selling the island. The Danish prime minister has said no, and Muté Egede, the prime minister of the autonomous territory, wants the ties with Copenhagen severed but does not want the United States to rule his country instead. He and many of his countrymen prefer total independence from Copenhagen’s management of its international affairs. Such a move, however, might end the Danish subsidies that keep the island economically afloat.
At the same time, the Danes depend on their association with Washington and other NATO capitals to secure their future, both remembering German occupation during World War II and watching the current Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Behind closed doors, the Danish government has reportedly telegraphed a willingness to enter private talks regarding military and commercial ventures. The best option for the United States entails privileged economic and defense deals leading to American advantages and firmer Greenlandic security, plus the development of the island’s natural resources. It seems highly likely that the Trump administration will strengthen the US military presence on Greenland. Trump’s insistence could lead to these ends more quickly than might traditional diplomacy, which ties negotiations in red tape.
Even after Greenland fades from the White House’s public agenda, a breakthrough agreement cannot be permanently ruled out. Trump has raised an awareness about the international salience of the Danish possession. His rhetoric could be interpreted as a warning shot across the bow of an acquisitive Russia or a mercantilist China to leave this part of the world alone. Trump may have posted his own no-trespassing sign on the island, calculating that playing a bold hand against Moscow and Beijing may be the best way to keep them at bay and to keep Greenland safe within the US orbit.
