President-elect Donald J. Trump turned his attention Tuesday to an idea that has fascinated him for years: acquiring Greenland for the United States. At a news conference Tuesday, he did not rule out using military and economic power to wrest territory from Denmark, a U.S. ally.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said, arguing that Denmark should give up Greenland “to protect the free world.” He threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark if they did not.
Earlier on this day, President Trump posted a photo of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., visiting Greenland, writing on social media that the possibility of the United States acquiring Arctic territory was “a deal that must happen.”
“Make Greenland great again,” the president-elect added.
After the press conference, Denmark sharply criticized the proposal, saying the world’s largest island is not for sale, and Greenland’s Prime Minister Mut B. Egede rejected President Trump’s territorial design. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders.” Mr. Egede said. “Our future and the fight for our independence is our business.”
During his first term, Trump urged his aides to explore ways to purchase Greenland, a semi-autonomous region known for its natural resources and strategic location for new shipping routes that could open when Arctic ice melts. A few weeks ago, President Trump reignited the conversation by asserting on social media that “ownership and control of Greenland is absolutely necessary.”
As the planet warms due to accelerating climate change, Greenland’s vast ice sheets and glaciers are retreating rapidly. Melting ice will allow drilling for oil and mining minerals such as copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt. These mineral resources are essential to the fast-growing industry that makes wind turbines, power transmission lines, batteries and electric vehicles.
Rising temperatures have already caused about 11,000 square miles of Greenland’s ice sheets and glaciers to melt over the past 30 years. Its area is about the size of Massachusetts.
In 2023, the Danish government published a report detailing Greenland’s potential as a rich deposit of valuable minerals. The Arctic islands have “favorable conditions for the formation of ore deposits, including many important primitive minerals.”
The melting of Arctic ice has created a new strategic asset in geopolitics. This means shorter, more efficient transport routes. For example, sailing times across the Arctic Ocean from Western Europe to East Asia are approximately 40% shorter than sailing through the Suez Canal. According to a recent Arctic Council report, shipping traffic in the Arctic has already surged 37% over the past decade.
China has shown considerable interest in new sea routes through the Arctic, and last November, China and Russia agreed to cooperate to develop Arctic sea routes.
President Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax.” But one of his former national security advisers, Robert C. O’Brien, suggested that the results are one reason President Trump is interested in making Greenland a U.S. territory.
“Greenland is the highway from the Arctic to North America and the United States,” he told Fox News. “As the climate warms, the Arctic will be a route to reducing use of the Panama Canal, which is of great strategic importance to the Arctic, which will be an important battlefield in the future.”
