Five years after Donald Trump raised eyebrows in Denmark by canceling a trip to Copenhagen due to the Nordic country’s refusal to sell Greenland, the president-elect of the United States is back at it. In several recent messages on Truth, the social network of which he is the owner, the New York magnate stated that “ownership and control” of the gigantic island, an autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark, “is an absolute necessity.” The Danish Government reacted by announcing an investment of at least 1.3 billion euros to strengthen the defense of Greenland.
Trump, who will begin his second term in the White House on January 20, has not limited himself in recent weeks to insisting on the annexation of Greenland. In his online publications he has also threatened the territorial sovereignty of Panama – with the claim of control of the Canal – and Canada, which he has referred to as the 51st State. The Republican’s idea of incorporating the largest island in the world into the United States – excluding Australia, considered a continent -, although it may seem crazy, revives old aspirations of Washington, which already tried to add this strategic territory in both the 18th and 19th centuries. .
in the book The Divider(He Who Sows Discord), reporters Peter Baker and Susan Glasser describe Trump’s obsession with Greenland. “I love maps. And I’ve always thought, ‘Look at the size of this. It’s huge, it should be part of the United States,” Trump told reporters in 2019 during an interview prior to the book’s publication. Geographically part of North America, Greenland is an island of enormous geostrategic value, in addition to having abundant natural resources to be exploited (hydrocarbons and rare earths, among others). With an area of almost 2.2 million square kilometers – comparable to four times the size of Spain – of which around 80% is covered by a layer of ice, this vast territory located between the Atlantic and the Arctic has with only 57,000 inhabitants, making it one of the least densely populated areas on the planet.
In August 2019, Trump canceled, via a message on Twitter, an official trip to Copenhagen because Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was not willing to discuss a possible sale of Greenland. “The prime minister has been able to save both the United States and Denmark a good amount of expense and effort by being so direct. “I thank you for that and I hope to be able to reschedule the appointment at some point in the future!” the president tweeted. A few days before, The Wall Street Journalhad published that Trump intended to negotiate the purchase of the island during his visit to Copenhagen, and the president had no qualms about admitting it.
On December 22, the president-elect of the United States once again irritated Prime Minister Frederiksen by announcing in Truth the election of Ken Howery, co-founder of PayPal, as the future American ambassador in Copenhagen, in a message in which he added: “ For national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” Three days later, in another publication on his social network, Trump congratulated Christmas, in addition to “the wonderful Chinese soldiers who operate lovingly, but illegally in the Panama Canal” and “the governor [en vez de primer ministro] from Canada, Justin Trudeau”, to “the people of Greenland, who want the United States to be there”; and reiterated that dominating the island is “a necessity for the United States for reasons of national security.”
A hypothetical acquisition of Greenland would not be an extraordinary episode in the history of the United States. Washington bought Florida from Spain, Louisiana from France or Alaska from Russia. Nor would it be the first territory that the kingdom of Denmark sells to the North American country. In 1917, the Caribbean islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, called the Danish West Indies, became the United States Virgin Islands after payment of $25 million.
US interest in Greenland dates back to at least 1867, when a State Department report highlighted the strategic location of the giant frozen island, along with its abundant sources of natural resources. “We should buy Iceland and Greenland, especially the latter. The reasons are political, military and commercial,” the document highlighted. Even so, a formal attempt to acquire Greenland did not come until 1946, just after World War II. The $100 million in gold bullion offered by President Harry Truman was rejected by Denmark. However, the United States already has a presence on the immense island: the Pituffik military base, inaugurated in 1943—during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Denmark—“a strategic location for anti-missile defense and space surveillance missions,” according to the United States Space Force, created by Trump in 2019.
Denmark investment in defense
Greenland was a colony administered by Copenhagen from the 18th century until 1953, when a new constitution integrated it into the kingdom of Denmark, and Greenlanders became Danish citizens. The island became an autonomous territory of the Nordic country after a referendum was held in 1979; Its powers were significantly expanded in 2009, after Greenlanders voted in favor in another popular consultation. However, the defense and foreign policy of Greenland, which is not part of the European Union, still depend entirely on Denmark.
“Greenland belongs to the people of Greenland,” Mute Egede, the Greenlandic prime minister, responded to Trump last week. Hours later, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced in Copenhagen a sharp increase in defense spending for Greenland. Poulsen did not give an exact figure — “a double-digit amount in billions.” [de coronas danesas]”—although Danish media estimated the package at at least €1.3 billion. The investment, according to the minister, will allow the acquisition of two patrol vessels, long-range drones and the increase of military personnel and dog sleds for land security, in addition to the modernization of one of the three main airports to be able to operate with F-35 fighter jets. “We have underinvested in the Arctic for many years; “We are now planning a stronger presence,” Poulsen stated.
After the 2021 elections in Greenland, the ruling party, Inuit Ataqatigiit, a pro-independence, environmentalist and left-wing party, fulfilled its campaign promises and suspended hydrocarbon and uranium exploration. The United States Geological Survey estimates that there could be up to 17.5 billion barrels of undiscovered crude oil and 4.19 trillion cubic meters of natural gas in Greenlandic waters. The island also has deposits of iron, aluminum, nickel, platinum, tungsten, titanium and copper, in addition to huge quantities of rare earths, a set of extremely important elements for the energy transition or the electronics and defense sectors, on which China today practically has a monopoly on world production.
