Greenland During Trump 2.0: Is America Poised for an Historic Arctic Territorial Expansion?
The aircraft that carried then U.S Secretary of State John Kerry to Greenland in 2016, sitting on the runway at Kangerlussuaq International Airport in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Photo: U.S. Department of State
It was just over five years ago, in August 2019, that President Trump first proposed purchasing Greenland from tiny Denmark, thereby completing a centuries-long project to expand and consolidate American power in the North American Arctic that began with the Alaska purchase in 1867, which ended Russia’s colonization of the far northwest of North America. Trump’s unsolicited offer made waves around the world as members of the diplomatic and national security community grappled with this sudden, unexpected prospect of an American Arctic territorial expansion, which would have been the first since 1867, when Secretary of State William H. Seward successfully engineered his vision for America to become a world power through successive expansions from the tropics to the polar region. Trump’s initial Greenland proposal was quickly and soundly rejected by both the Danes and Greenlanders, the latter famously responding, “We’re open for business, not for sale.” Most observers were just as pessimistic about William H. Seward’s nineteenth century Alaska purchase, which, like Trump’s 2019 proposal to purchase Greenland, was widely dismissed as “folly,” though it is now universally recognized for Seward’s strategic prescience. But all talk of a contemporary northern U.S. territorial expansion came to an end in 2020, with Trump’s second term delayed for another four years, as attention shifted from expanding America’s own sovereign Arctic footprint to expanding and fortifying the NATO alliance’s combined Arctic footprint in response to the geopolitical instability unleashed by Putin’s expansionist 2022 gambit in Ukraine.
However, with President Trump’s decisive electoral mandate late last year, and his return to power next week, America and the world are once again witnessing his unorthodox diplomatic vision for the Arctic, most evident in recent days with his renewed (and reinvigorated) calls for America’s Arctic expansion through gaining sovereign possession of Greenland. While criticism of Trump’s renewed overture to absorb Greenland, potentially by force or economic coercion if Denmark and Greenland continue to rebuff the President-elect, was immediate and near-unanimous (as was the case with his initial 2019 overture), this renewal of presidential interest in Greenland, never a given considering all of America’s diverse global strategic interests competing for presidential attention, does present Greenland with an historic opportunity to pursue its own agenda with the United States on matters relating to its future independence.
As with Trump’s rebuffed 2019 overture, both Greenland and its sovereign partner Denmark have again rejected all such talk as folly. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen reiterated on January 7th – the very day the President-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr., flew to Nuuk on Trump Force One (as Trump’s famed 757 jet is known) for a quick but largely symbolic private visit, that once again, “Greenland is not for sale,” adding for good measure that “we need to stay calm and stick to our principles.”1) She noted that despite the President-elect’s overture, the United States remains Denmark’s “most important and closest ally,” and that she welcomed the President-elect’s interest in the Arctic, cautioning that it should “be done in a way that is respectful of the Greenlandic people. At the same time, it must be done in a way that allows Denmark and the United States to still cooperate in, among other things, NATO.”2)
Greenland’s Prime Minister, Múte Egede, continues to call for independence from Denmark, and for its liberation from a long colonial history, while Aaja Chemnitz, one of Greenland’s two representatives to Denmark’s parliament, told the press that “most people don’t want” to join the United States, particularly through an Alaska-purchase modeled acquisition: “I think some people find it quite disrespectful. And the way it has been done, and just the fact that you’re saying that you can buy another country.”3) But Trump, if anything, can be a persistent suitor when he sets his mind to it. Just ask the American electorate.
Geopolitical Logic in an American Arctic Expansion
A Greenland purchase, as improbable (and inappropriate to some) as it may seem, does have its own historical and geopolitical logic, as it would unify the northwestern and northeastern flanks of Arctic North America under the direct constitutional umbrella of the United States for the first time, bringing to an end one of the continent’s most persistent insecurities, which was last a central topic of strategic attention after Denmark fell to the Nazis and war came to the North Atlantic, with the defense of Greenland falling to the United States, as it would continue to do during the Cold War. The idea of purchasing Greenland was briefly floated in 1946 as America began to grapple with the new threat posed to North America by Soviet bombers.
As NPR has reported, Washington “opened negotiations with Denmark about using Greenland, and at one point, the American side proposed buying the island outright for $100 million in gold and the rights to a patch of Alaskan oil … but even then – as now – the idea shocked the Danes.”4) NPR further reported: “Secretary of State James Byrnes made the offer to visiting Danish Foreign Minister Gustav Rasmussen in New York on Dec. 14, 1946, according to a telegram from Byrnes to the U.S. Legation in Copenhagen. After discussing other security arrangements for Greenland, Byrnes said he told Rasmussen that perhaps an outright sale to the United States ‘would be the most clean-cut and satisfactory.’ Our needs … seemed to come as a shock to Rasmussen, but he did not reject my suggestions flatly and said that he would study a memorandum which I gave him.”5)
Potential price points now-a-days range from a low of $230.25 million as estimated by the Daily Mail6) to a more robust $12.5 billion (based on the GDP-adjusted purchase price of the U.S. Virgin Islands, purchased primarily for strategic defense reasons) to $77 billion (based on the GDP-adjusted purchase price of Alaska, acquired primarily for strategic economic and diplomatic reasons) as estimated by the New York Times7) to as high as $1.1 trillion, based on the tongue-in-cheek “sum of the parts” valuation of Greenland’s total untapped natural resource wealth as estimated by the Financial Times FT Alphaville blog8) – all which make the original price paid for Alaska, $7.2 million, or just two cents per acre, a veritable bargain (even when taking into consideration its inflation-adjusted purchase price in today’s dollars of $153.5 million).
An Ironic Recognition of Arctic Climate Change
Progressive critics have unfairly portrayed Trump’s vision to expand America to include Greenland – which America has defended since World War II after Denmark fell to the Nazis – as a neo-imperial land-grab against a defenseless native people. But Greenlanders, while continuing to rebuff Trump’s overture to purchase the island, did welcome the renewed American interest that followed Trump’s 2019 overture, and which led to a $12.1 million American investment the next year and the re-opening of an American consulate in Nuuk for the first time since 1953. However, with renewed American investment, there have arisen renewed concerns of the potential risks associated with increasing U.S. influence.9)
Green activists have long taken aim at Trump for his dedication to America’s energy independence and commitment to the development and utilization of its own domestic energy resources (and his proud proclamation to “Drill, baby, drill!”) – a natural prerogative of any independent sovereign state. Many Greenlanders find much common ground on this matter with the Trump base and their desire for energy independence and resource wealth, and aspire to much the same – courting global energy and mining industries to help develop their own vast reservoir of untapped resources, whether under its retreating ice cap or beneath its increasingly open coastal waters. Trump’s strategic interest in Greenland reflects his continuing, one might even argue maturing, recognition of the profound climatic transformation under way, most notably in the Arctic, as a result of climate change. This irony has not been overlooked; as The Guardian has recently reported, “Donald Trump’s desire to seize control of Greenland and the Panama canal is being shaped in part by a force that he has sought to deny even exists – the climate crisis.”10) The Guardian cites former Obama administration climate adviser Alice Hill, who observes: “It’s ironic that we are getting a president who famously called climate change a hoax but is now expressing interest in taking over areas gaining greater importance because of climate change.”11)
Evolving and Contending Visions of a Greenlandic Sovereign Restoration
The debate on Greenland’s constitutional future remains ongoing, complex and nuanced with a wide variety of views and perspectives.12) Most Greenlanders want to be independent, as reflected in the decisive outcome of their 2008 referendum on independence, with a 75.54 percent yes vote. While some prefer to maintain traditional subsistence use of Greenland’s lands, waters and resources, many desire to bring their bountiful natural resources to market for their own prosperity. Donald Trump wants the same for America, and he has now believed for over five years that its becoming an American territory or state is in both Greenland’s and America’s mutual interests, even if there has yet to emerge a vocal community of Greenlanders who likewise believe. Will such a movement arise now? Might the prospect of enhanced U.S. investment, security and economic opportunity foster the emergence of such a community?
To date, Greenland’s pursuit of independence has been pursued through direct bilateral negotiations with Denmark, leading in 1979 to home rule governance, and following the 2009 Self-Government Act to more robust self rule, with its domestic powers increasing incrementally and decolonizing amicably along the way. This has been recently discussed by Romain Chuffart and Rachael Lorna Johnstone at The Arctic Institute.13) At the same time, through its overlapping membership in the Inuit Circumpolar Council, ICC Greenland has directly engaged the human rights and Indigenous rights communities as part of the transnational Inuit rights movement, participating in the enhancement of Indigenous rights worldwide. These two approaches have allowed Greenlanders to simultaneously pursue both a Westphalian and transnational model of Indigenous sovereignty.14)
Expanding American Arctic Interests and Territorial Ambitions
It should come as no surprise that when naming his pick to serve as Ambassador to Denmark in recent days, President-elect Trump reiterated his ambition for Greenland to join the American constitutional family after its dormancy since 2019, announcing on social media: “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” This wording signals an intensification of Trump’s Greenland interest and his vision for a more united North American Arctic, placing it firmly within the national interest as he perceives it. When juxtaposed with his comments mocking Canada’s Prime Minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada” and his subsequent articulation of an expanded vision for northward American territorial expansion in recent days (aligning with the coincidental resignation of Justin Trudeau as Prime Minister, in part because his base felt he was ill-prepared to defend Canadian interests during Trump 2.0) we can detect hints of a more ambitious, expansive – and perhaps to Canadians, ominous – American Arctic expansion more reminiscent of American policies of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries than today.
Trump has also sought to align his Greenland vision with the values and rhetoric of his MAGA base, evident in his recent social media comments on his son’s visit to Greenland on January 7: “Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland,” Trump wrote. “The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”15) This is a more defensive rationale for an America Arctic expansion, presented to Trump’s base as a protective move to dissuade Russia and China from either encroaching upon or asserting an offensive threat to the region, one that is more compatible with the “America First” approach Trump and his base embrace. It is also consistent with the latest update of the Pentagon’s Arctic strategy, released last year, that lists China as America’s top security concern in the Arctic, and whose Arctic ambitions have generated growing concern within the national security community ever since Beijing released its own Arctic strategy in 2018.16)
Toward an Alignment of Greenlandic and American Interests
But at the same time, we can also find in Trump’s renewed interest in our northern neighborhood hints of a new opportunity for a more robust alignment of American, Canadian and Greenlandic strategic interests and a renewed commitment to the security of Arctic North America, as well as a mutual recognition of the strategic implications of Arctic climate change – the very reason for Trump’s renewed interest in this oft-ignored corner of our world. This could present a diplomatic opening for the joint development of the region’s resources, and the joint enhancement of the region’s security, perhaps through a recommitment to and expansion of NORAD – serving the mutual interests of Greenland, Canada and the United States.
Indeed, Greenland now has a chance to reconsider Trump’s offer for it to become part of the American constitutional family – and in so doing, it can help to shift the conversation back to a more balanced and inclusive role for Greenland in the region’s future, and away from recent statements made suggesting a role for economic coercion and the potential use of force.17)
This time, Nuuk will and rightly should expect a seat at the table, as called for in its first Arctic strategy, Greenland in the World – Nothing About Us Without Us: Greenland’s Foreign, Security and Defense Policy 2024-2033 – an Arctic Strategy. Trump has never been opposed to that. Indeed, Greenland, while the underdog in any negotiation with the United States, has many strong cards in its hand. President-elect Trump has discovered that in a warming and more accessible Arctic, Greenland with its vast, untapped natural resource base and predominantly Inuit population has what Marc Jacobsen described in his 2019 article on The Arctic Institute website as an “Arctic advantage” that until now has been largely recognized by Denmark alone, but is now recognized increasingly by the world’s powers, including President-elect Trump.18)
Already, Greenland seems to recognize the historic opportunity presented by President-elect Trump’s renewed interest in the island. As reported in the New York Times, “Greenland’s prime minister said the territory would like to work more closely with the United States on defense and natural resources,” citing Prime Minister Múte Egede’s remarks to a press conference in Nuuk: “The reality is we are going to work with the U.S. – yesterday, today and tomorrow. We have to be very smart on how we act. … The power struggles between the superpowers are rising and are now knocking on our door.”19) How might such talks with the incoming administration and Greenland over its constitutional future play out? Perhaps its conversation with Trump can start with his vision for American territorial acquisition, and evolve from there to support Greenland’s own vision for sovereign independence in partnership with America, and conclude, as Trump’s relationship with Greenland grows, to his extension of more robust American protection to Greenland in support of its sovereign aspirations.
This conversation is only just getting started, and we have at least four years to watch it unfold. During this time, there will be many new opportunities for Greenlanders to win the confidence of President Trump, and, through spirited negotiation, persuade him to embrace their vision of sovereign restoration and collaborative diplomacy with the United States and its other NATO partners, as articulated in its innovative and visionary 2024 Arctic strategy, Greenland in the World – Nothing About Us Without Us. New and unexpected alignments of interest can emerge from talks between parties initially opposed to one another on such contentious matters as sovereignty and the national interest. Perhaps in time, when this conversation reaches its conclusion, we will witness the sovereign restoration of Arctic North America’s first and only truly Indigenous state, and a true alignment of Indigenous and state interests at the top of the world – providing a robust and enduring foundation of a true North, strong and free.
Barry Scott Zellen, PhD is author, most recently, of Arctic Exceptionalism: Cooperation in a Contested World (Lynne Rienner Books, 2024). He is a Research Scholar in the Department of Geography at UConn and Senior Fellow (Arctic Security) at the Institute of the North.
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