President Donald Trump’s long-time goal of claiming Greenland for America has shifted from rhetoric to official US policy as the White House moves forward on a formal plan to acquire the Arctic island from Denmark.
The plan mobilises several cabinet departments behind Trump’s years of talk about wanting Greenland, whose economic and strategic value has grown as increasing temperatures melt Arctic ice.
Greenland’s size – 2.16 million sq km – also offers Trump, a former New York City developer, the chance to clinch what he may see as one of history’s greatest real estate deals.
Danish officials angrily insist that the sparsely populated island is not for sale and cannot be annexed. But Trump has made clear his determination to control it.
“We need Greenland for national security and even international security, and we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it,” he said in an address to Congress last month.
“One way or the other, we’re going to get it,” Trump added.
The White House’s National Security Council has met several times to put Trump’s words into action, and recently sent specific instructions to multiple arms of the government, according to a US official.
The plan’s full details are unclear. But despite Trump’s allusions to the possible use of force, the deliberations led by the security council never seriously considered military options, the official said.
The policy instead emphasises persuasion over coercion, and features a public relations effort aimed at convincing Greenland’s population of 57,000 that they should ask to join the United States.
Trump’s advisers have discussed using advertising and social media campaigns to sway public opinion on the island, according to another person briefed on the matter.
It may be an uphill battle. In an election last month, an opposition political party that favours quick independence and closer ties with the United States finished in second place but with just a quarter of the vote.
The US messaging campaign will include an unlikely appeal to Greenlanders’ shared heritage with the native Inuit people of Alaska, nearly 4,000km away, the official said.
Greenland’s Inuit population is descended from people who migrated from Alaska hundreds of years ago, and the island’s official language is derived from Inuit dialects that originated in Arctic Canada.
Trump’s advisers have begun making their public case, arguing that Denmark has been a poor custodian of the island, that only the United States can protect it from encroachment by Russia and China, and that America will help Greenlanders “get rich”, as Trump has put it.
The Trump administration is also reminding Greenland that the United States has defended it before.
Last month, Trump posted a slick 90-second video on social media celebrating the “blood and bravery” of US troops who took positions on the island during the second World War to prevent a feared Nazi invasion after Germany occupied Denmark.
Although Denmark hoped that US forces would leave after the war, they never did, and the United States still maintains a military base there.
The Trump administration is also studying financial incentives for Greenlanders, including the possibility of replacing the $600 million in subsidies that Denmark gives the island with an annual payment of about $10,000 per Greenlander.
Some Trump officials believe those costs could be offset by new revenue from the extraction of Greenland’s natural resources, which include rare earth minerals, copper, gold, uranium and oil.
Trump officials argue that American capital and industrial might can gain access to the island’s largely untapped mineral wealth in a way that Denmark cannot. “This is about critical minerals,” Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told Fox News in January. “This is about natural resources.”
But analysts do not universally agree that it will be simple to profit from mining in the island’s still-frigid regions. And explaining a significant expenditure to American voters as Trump has tasked the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, with slashing the federal government by $1 trillion might be tough.
Trump’s interest in Greenland is not new. He was serious enough in his first term to charge national security officials with exploring the idea. But after he started discussing it publicly, Greenland officials balked and Trump did not pursue the idea, which was treated as a wild fantasy.
Since his second election last autumn, Trump has renewed his desire with greater fervour. “Let’s get it done,” he has demanded of aides.
“President Trump believes Greenland is a strategically important location, and is confident Greenlanders would be better served protected by the United States from modern threats in the Arctic region,” said National Security Council spokesperson Brian Hughes.
Hughes noted that Waltz and vice president JD Vance had recently visited Greenland and “laid out the important case for a partnership between Greenland and the United States to establish long-term peace at home and shared prosperity abroad.”
Some analysts say the idea of incorporating Greenland into the United States, or at least developing much closer ties with the island, is less absurd than it might sound.
That is largely because of climate change, which is thawing resource-rich areas and making them more commercially viable. Higher temperatures have also opened new sea routes through the Arctic for commercial shipping – as well as for Chinese and Russian military vessels.
But Trump’s vows to control Greenland “one way or another” sound to much of the world like raw imperialism, along with his talk of retaking the Panama Canal and even annexing Canada. If the administration’s persuasion efforts fail, it seems quite possible that Trump will escalate his tactics.
Several US presidents have considered trying to acquire Greenland. The Truman administration, rattled by Nazi threats to the island during second World War, offered Denmark the equivalent of $1 billion for it in 1946.
Denmark has exercised varying forms of control over Greenland for centuries and accepted it as a part of its kingdom in 1953. Today, Greenland manages its own domestic affairs with a budget subsidised up to 60 per cent by Denmark, which also manages its defence and foreign policy. Many of Greenland’s leaders support independence, but differ on how soon that should happen and whether to move closer to the United States.
For their part, Denmark’s leaders are shocked and furious over Trump’s talk of buying or seizing the island, and they insist that Greenlanders must freely determine their own fate. During a visit to Greenland last week, prime minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark condemned the Trump administration’s “pressure and threats,” saying that “you cannot annex another country.”
Amid Denmark’s fierce resistance, the Trump administration is turning to direct courtship of Greenlanders.
Addressing the people of Greenland during his address to Congress, Trump said, “We strongly support your right to determine your own future and, if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.”
“We will keep you safe,” he said. “We will make you rich.”
Danish leaders argue that the US pressure campaign is damaging America’s post-second world War alliance with Denmark.
“We have looked up to you,” Frederiksen said of the United States during her visit to Greenland this month. “You have inspired us. You have stood guard over the free world.”
“But,” she added, “when you demand to take over a part of the kingdom’s territory – when we are subjected to pressure and threats – what are we to think of the country we have admired for so many years?” − This article originally appeared in The New York Times
