Donald Trump’s takeover of Greenland makes no sense

Greenlanders may find some solace from President Donald Trump’s announcement on January 21 that he had agreed to “a framework for a future agreement with respect to Greenland.” What he meant by his ambition to make the island part of the United States is unclear. Earlier that day Mr Trump had said, “I don’t want to use force, I don’t want to use force, I will not use force.” Yet he insisted that control of the island is vital to America’s national security – and again talked about ownership.

In Nuuk, before his speech, Greenlanders were eager to explain how little interest they had in being bought by the US. A survey a year ago found that 85% of them rejected the idea – and it seems their attitudes have hardened since then. Mr Trump is “trying to rule the world like he’s the boss of it all”, sighs Thomas Nuka, knotting a fishing net. The situation for indigenous people in the Americas is particularly bad, he added – a major concern because he, like about 90% of Greenlanders, is Inuit.

On the face of things, the views of people like Mr. Nuka should matter. The approximately 56,000 Greenlanders are largely self-governing, although Denmark still plays a role in foreign policy and defence. Danish law gives Greenlanders the right to declare independence; By extension, they would presumably be free to become part of the United States if they wished. But Mr Trump’s determination to annex Greenland by any means has no bearing on the views of Greenlanders. Instead, he justifies it on military grounds and the claim that Greenlanders would be more secure and prosperous under American rule. Both claims are completely unbelievable.

Mr Trump’s military arguments are vague. He has said that Russian and Chinese warships are “everywhere” around Greenland and that Denmark is unable to defend the territory with only “two dog-sleds”. More specifically he argues that owning Greenland is essential to his proposed “Golden Dome”, a system intended to protect the US from missiles. Yet the Trump administration’s new national-security strategy released in December makes no mention of Greenland. (This included a woolly call to protect America’s “access to key geographic areas” in the Western Hemisphere.)

Although Russia’s armed forces are engaged in the war in Ukraine, Danish intelligence assessments suggest that “its core capabilities in the Arctic remain largely intact”, especially its naval forces. Like NATO, it closely monitors the sea routes between Greenland, Iceland and the UK (GIUK Gap). But there is no sign of anything untoward beyond this. “We have not had any Chinese warships in Greenland for almost a decade,” says Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Indeed, Russia has welcomed Mr Trump’s attack on Greenland, and mischievously compared it to the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. It probably sees far more benefit from Mr Trump’s moves in widening the rift in NATO than it does in any Greenland adventure of its own. In any case, Mr. Trump himself has used his peace plan for Ukraine to invite a larger Russian presence in the Arctic by calling for joint Russian-American mining projects in the region.

Chinese icebreakers and research ships do indeed roam Arctic waters, presumably for military and civilian purposes. But they focus primarily on the seas around Alaska, which weakens the argument that US sovereignty would serve as a deterrent to such activity near Greenland. Chinese and Russian naval and coast guard vessels are far more active in the Bering Sea, which separates Russia from Alaska by a narrow margin.

Between 2020 and 2025, NORAD (a joint US and Canadian air-defence command) counted 95 Russian and Chinese incursions into the North American air-defence identification zone. Of these, 91 were near Alaska and four near Canada. No one was from GIUK Gap. In 2024 a joint patrol of Russian and Chinese nuclear-capable bombers came within 140 nautical miles of the Alaskan region, alarming the Pentagon. “We need a more consistent presence around Alaska,” says Heather Conley of the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank. “That’s where the most worrisome activity is happening lately.”

Although superpower competition is intensifying in the Arctic, U.S. officials believe the threat in Greenland is not imminent. Yet they insist that because of its strategic location they need to protect it from future threats. The polar ice-cap provides a hiding place for nuclear-missile submarines of Russia and, over time, China.

However, Denmark is increasing its forces in Greenland. In October it said it planned to spend DKr27.4 billion ($4.26 billion) to buy Arctic ships, a patrol plane, radar systems and drones, as well as a new military headquarters. It also plans to buy 16 more F-35 jets from the US, which will cost DKr29bn. And it’s bolstering a Special Forces unit that patrols Greenland’s arctic wilderness using the most sensible form of transportation, dog-sleds.

What’s more, there is no one to stop the US from strengthening its forces in Greenland. The various treaties with Denmark give it almost free rein in this regard. It used to have 17 bases on the island; It now has only one early-warning station at Pitufik (see map). The Golden Dome will rely on a network of sensors around the world and in space. Pitfik is a vital node for tracking missiles and communicating with satellites. (The European Space Agency is building its own satellite ground station in Kangerlussuaq.)

The US has plans to strengthen its Arctic forces, but they are largely dependent on cooperation with the same allies it is alienating because of its expansionism: for example, it is building new icebreakers with Finland. Meanwhile, the base at Pitufik is resupplied by a Canadian icebreaker. Mr. Trump’s push to annex Greenland could actually harm rather than improve America’s security.

an expensive renovation

Similarly, the economic benefits of annexation for Greenland and the United States are remote. Tourism and fishing are already thriving and unemployment is negligible, especially aided by the boom in mining exploration.

Nevertheless, Greenland remains a financial crisis for Denmark, which sends the island’s government about $700 million per year, equivalent to about 20% of Greenland’s GDP. The main reason for this is that Greenlanders are among the most subsidized people in the world. Most of the housing is owned by the government. Of the approximately 29,000 people working, 12,500 are employed by the state. Meanwhile, the unemployed receive benefits equal to 90% of the minimum wage. In fact, three-quarters of the population is dependent on the state.

All this makes the notion that the US could buy out the Greenlanders with a lump sum payment impossible. Denmark’s subsidies amount to more than $10,000 per capita each year. So the $100,000 offer to each resident proposed by some American officials is equivalent to less than ten years of Danish welfare.

Although Mr Trump clearly said in Davos that the US needs Greenland for national security reasons rather than its minerals, others in his administration have cited the island’s rich endowment of rare earths and other strategic minerals. Still, the chances of it becoming profitable are less. Glaciers cover about 80% of the island, making exploration and development of mines expensive and difficult. Greenland’s transportation infrastructure is meager: no two cities are connected by road, limiting mining to coastal areas accessible by ship.

At least 18 mines closed during the 20th century, often due to high costs or logistical problems. Today there are only two working mines on the island. Nalunak is a gold mine that was closed in 2014 and reopened in 2024 due to rising bullion prices. The second, White Mountain, produces anorthosite, an input for fiberglass and paint. It has faced all kinds of challenges. In its early stages the mine had to employ workers from Britain, Denmark and elsewhere, which was expensive (although about 80% of its workers are now local). “Everything is complicated,” says Martin Haynes, boss of Lumina, which runs the White Mountains. “Transportation, especially in winter, is almost impossible.”

The island’s two major rare-earth projects are facing difficulties even before they begin operations. The owners of Kvanefjeld, located at the southern tip of Greenland, have spent more than $100 million developing the site since 2007. In 2019 he applied for a license to start mining. The government of Greenland has blocked it out of fear that it could release uranium into nearby farms and fields.

Operators of another potential rare-earth mine, Tanbreeze, say they will have spent $290 million on the project before operations begin in 2027. Part of that could come from the government-run Export-Import Bank of the US, which is considering a $120 million loan for the project. Once in operation, it can be expensive to run: unlike rare-earth mines elsewhere, its deposits are contained in eudialyte, a reddish mineral from which rare-earth elements are difficult to extract. Currently no one processes the stuff commercially.

According to a 2016 estimate by Australian organization Minx Consulting, the cost of running a mine in the Arctic could be two to almost three times higher than an equivalent project at lower latitudes. For example, just west of Greenland, on Baffin Island in Canada’s Nunavut territory, is the Mary River mine, which has been producing iron ore since 2014. Yet between 2016 and 2019 it reportedly lost $310 million.

Climate change could make some logistics easier, such as longer ice-free seasons in the ocean. But this will also cause problems. Apart from the extreme south, most of Greenland’s coast is covered with permafrost, which is soil that remains frozen year-round. Melting of permafrost is causing problems to miners in other countries. In 2020, a diesel tank owned by Russian mining company Norilsk Nickel collapsed when the ground beneath it slipped, spilling 21,000 tonnes of fuel into rivers and lakes.

Greenland’s oil and gas may sound attractive. But it will be difficult to get the stuff out. The largest resources, estimated to contain more than 30 billion barrels of oil equivalent, are in eastern Greenland, where conditions are extremely inhospitable even by Greenlandic standards. Oil giants that once explored the area, including Shell, Equinor and ExxonMobil, have all left.

This suggests that even if the US were able to gain ownership of Greenland, it could expect very little financial return. At the same time, it will also incur huge liabilities. A change in Greenland’s status could lead to a rupture in NATO, with the US bearing the entire cost of defending it. Operating its single existing base, Pitfik, will likely cost around $4 billion over the next decade. Any major expansion of defense infrastructure can be prohibitively expensive due to the difficulties associated with construction in the Arctic.

Perhaps the closest comparable construction project to the construction of a new Arctic base is the Mary River Mine, for which the transportation infrastructure alone cost $1.25 billion. A US official believes it would cost $20 billion to $30 billion to build and maintain five bases in Greenland. Add to this that in present value terms it would cost about $10 billion to continue generous payments to the Danish population over the next 30 years, then taking ownership of Greenland looks like a decidedly bad financial deal. If you consider the incalculable cost of damage to America’s security and its reputation in the world, the bill will be much higher.

Of course, the closer you look at what Mr. Trump sees as the property deal of the century, the more it looks like many of his hotel and casino projects in the 1990s and 2000s: attractive at first glance, but so laden with debt and hidden costs that they soon failed.