U.S. President Donald Trump’s strident demand that the semi-autonomous island territory of Greenland come under U.S. “ownership” has set off a firestorm of consternation across the Atlantic. Although geographically part of the North American continent, the frozen island nation—more than three times Texas’s size, with 60,000 inhabitants—has been under European control for centuries.
Europe has progressively loosened its control of Greenland over time. And there’s no reason to think that it wouldn’t further loosen that hold to allow the United States to pursue policies of mutual trans-Atlantic interest, including the expansion of mining and the U.S. military presence.
The greatest hurdle to that process might, in fact, be Trump’s own public bullying. Greenland is an ideal project for the trans-Atlantic allies to pursue together, in consultation with native Greenlanders.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark (and thus the European Economic Community from 1973 to 1985) but since 1979 has existed as an autonomous territory with its own flag, language, and institutions. The Arctic territory does not have its own currency, constitution, or citizenship, and the judiciary and foreign affairs also remain under Danish control.
Greenland now has self-rule that includes control of its own natural resources and economic development. Since 2009, the massive, mostly ice-covered block of the Arctic located 2,920 kilometers (1,814 miles) off Denmark has had the power to declare itself independent pending approval by a Greenlandic referendum and the Danish Parliament.
In the past, Europeans have couched their interests in Greenland as foremost environmental. In its updated Arctic policy published in 2021, the EU underscores its aims to help preserve the Arctic as a region of peaceful cooperation and “to slow the effects of climate change, and to support the sustainable development of Arctic regions to the benefit of Arctic communities, not least Indigenous Peoples, and future generations.” The EU also dug into its pocket for 225 million euros ($236 million) to assist Greenland with education and 40 million more euros ($42 million) to address radioactive contamination in the Barents Sea from 2021 to 2027.
Last year, the European Commission established an office in the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk, that President Ursula von der Leyen inaugurated in person, her first visit to the island territory.
But the new strategy, for the first time, also bluntly underlined the geopolitics inherent in Greenland’s resource development. The strategy’s communique stated: “Intensified interest in Arctic resources and transport routes could transform the region into an arena of local and geopolitical competition and possible tensions, possibly threatening the EU’s interests. Global demand for products from Arctic sources underlines that Arctic development is not driven by local political and economic forces only.”
“The EU is trying to improve its position in the Arctic to benefit from the riches and seek influence in regional governance. So are other ambitious actors like China, India, and, most recently, Brazil,” said Marc Jacobsen of the Royal Danish Defense College, who is the author of Greenland in Arctic Security.
But Europe has yet to commit to any significant further investment to promote its security in Greenland, or to access its natural resources.
This is where the United States comes in. Trump’s recognition of Greenland’s importance to U.S. security is neither outlandish nor new. Washington has long coveted the sprawling Arctic landmass located between the United States and Russia—lying on the shortest route from North America to Europe—and in 1946, Harry Truman offered to buy the glacier-covered island from Denmark for $100 million in gold as well as the rights to a patch of Alaskan oil.
Washington rightly sees the land mass as vital to Atlantic security, as much today as during the Cold War. This is why even after downsizing in the 1990s, the United States still maintains Pituffik Space Base, a U.S. military installation high up in the Arctic Circle, which is considered key to missile early-warning and defense as well as space surveillance.
In light of Russia’s ever more aggressive postures, an expanded U.S. presence in Greenland would likely be welcomed by Greenlanders and Europeans alike.
“But there’s no reason the U.S. has to own it,” said Kristian Soby Kristensen, the director of the Center for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen. “The U.S. has wide-ranging military rights granted to it by Denmark. Greenland and Europe, too, recognize the U.S.’s security interests as intricately connected to theirs and would most probably have nothing against Washington building them out. Trump is knocking down a door that is open to the U.S.”
On Jan. 13, Denmark’s foreign minister said his country wanted to work with Greenland to “continue talks” with Trump “to ensure legitimate American interests” in the Arctic.
“It will take negotiations with the Greenlanders themselves and some genuine interest in our people’s issues here,” said Kuupik Kleist, a Greenlandic politician who served as prime minister between 2009 and 2013. “You don’t just buy a people or a country. We have no intention of being colonized again.”
Ultimately, the United States and the EU have similar and overlapping geostrategic priorities in Greenland—and never more so than now. Denmark (via Greenland), Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and Norway—NATO’s northern flank in Europe—share the Arctic with the North Americans and Russia. The latter has recently invested heavily in its Arctic military operations, including in nuclear-capable strategic bombers, and missile and surveillance systems in northern Siberia. Russian nuclear submarines patrol the Arctic and Barents seas.
From Greenland’s shores, the surveillance technology of the Atlantic allies has long been critical—and at no time more than now, in the context of the war in Ukraine, when any advantage that the Europeans can gain against Russia is worth capitalizing upon.
Greenlanders, Kristensen said, know well that they can’t defend themselves and are gladly part of the Atlantic security sphere. Conspicuously, however, neither the Danes nor the EU have significant military assets in Greenland. In early 2024, Denmark nudged up defense spending for Greenland, and negotiations are ongoing in the Danish Parliament on investing further in two new inspection ships, two long-range drones, and two extra dogsled teams. But the security investments that the Trump administration has in mind are probably much vaster than dogsled teams—for example, the likes of increased radar coverage and more extensive anti-submarine capabilities.
Jacobsen of the Royal Danish Defense College said that Greenland’s rich natural resources are an even more important trans-Atlantic interest than its role in providing national security, although the two are closely connected. The natural resources buried under thawing tundra include zinc, lead, gold, iron ore, and heavy and light rare earth. Experts estimate its cumulative resource wealth to be somewhere from tens to hundreds of billion dollars.
And the climate breakdown is opening new shipping lanes where before there was ice. In particular, Jacobsen said, the rare earth elements located in Greenland are critical for high-tech devices ranging from cellphones to sophisticated military technology, as well as components in the clean energy transition.
“To get at the minerals, Greenland needs a whole set of infrastructure works,” Jacobsen said. “This begins with the basics such as harbors, roads, and airports. It’s an expensive proposition, which means that it would require high global market prices to make it economically feasible.”
Jacobsen added: “A decade ago, China had shown considerable interest in developing the territory’s extractive industries, but came to the conclusion that it was simply too complicated. What scared off the Chinese was, however, the Greenlandic decision to abandon uranium mining. The US’s hostile attitude toward Chinese presence certainly also had an effect.”
In fact, both Kristensen and Jacobsen said that the Greenlanders have been pleading for exactly this kind of investment for years—from any investor willing—but have found no takers. This is another open door that the United States—and Europe together with it—could walk through as allies in order to enhance both of their like-minded sets of interests.
Ironically, despite all of the public acrimony, Denmark and the first Trump administration cooperated on Greenland policy in 2018. When the Pentagon learned of China’s intention to build three airports in western Greenland, it requested that Denmark step in and do it first—which happened, fending off a Chinese presence on the island.
But Washington’s recent injection of such vitriol into the equation plays straight into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s playbook.
“It must have been a great day in the Russian foreign ministry,” said Kristensen of Jan. 7, when Trump sounded off on the issue, implicitly setting the NATO partners against one another and providing more fuel to justify the violation of state borders.
The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter pointed out the parallels between Trump’s tactics and those of Moscow: “This rhetoric comes straight from the Kremlin. Trump is now talking about Greenland in the same way Putin used to talk about Ukraine. … This is a remarkable legitimisation of modern Russian imperialism.”
Now, Europe has to convince Trump that cooperation and a rules-based order is in the Washington’ best interest—which, as far as Greenland goes, is certainly the case. A dose of dispassionate statesmanship could parent a positive result for Greenland, the United States, and Europe—and help embattled Ukraine, too.
