Why Trump Wants Greenland

President Trump reiterated on Sunday that he wants to take over Greenland, prompting Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen of Denmark to urge him to “stop the threats” to annex the semiautonomous Danish territory.On Sunday evening, after Ms. Frederiksen’s statement, Mr. Trump doubled down. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security,” he told reporters on Air Force One, seemingly emboldened after the American raid on Venezuela and capture of Nicolás Maduro, its authoritarian leader, and his wife.Mr. Trump’s comments were the latest in his lengthy campaign to assume control of Greenland. In December, he appointed the United States’ first special envoy to the island, infuriating the leaders of both Denmark and Greenland.On Sunday, a day after the end of the U.S. military raid on Venezuela, Mr. Trump again repeated his focus on getting Greenland, but Ms. Frederiksen and Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen of Greenland pushed back hard.Ms. Frederiksen said she would “strongly urge the United States to stop the threats.” Mr. Nielsen called Mr. Trump’s rhetoric “utterly unacceptable” and said his efforts to link the situation in Venezuela with Greenland were “wrong” and “disrespectful.”Why does Trump want Greenland?Mr. Trump says that the island is vital for American national security, and argues that Denmark is not spending enough to properly safeguard it.Greenland is important because of its geostrategic location. An American military base, which specializes in missile defense, is on the island.Most of Greenland is inside the Arctic Circle, where superpowers are vying for both military and commercial dominance. Controlling the island would give the United States an outpost in a critically important naval corridor that connects the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic, where climate change is melting the ice and making once-unnavigable territory a theater of competition.Greenland also has huge stores of rare earth minerals. These are vital components for making batteries, cellphones, electric vehicles and other items using advanced technologies, and China dominates the global market for them.Some scientists say that parts of Greenland’s continental shelf could hold some of the largest undiscovered oil and gas deposits in the Arctic. But Greenland’s government formally abandoned its oil ambitions in 2021, citing environmental risks and a lack of commercial viability.Greenland has also taken legal steps to limit the potential for environmentally destructive mining practices, including a 2021 ban on uranium mining. Such measures could be overturned if the United States acquired the territory.Who controls Greenland?Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, which colonized it more than 300 years ago. For centuries, Denmark governed Greenland with strict oversight, regulating commerce and allowing only limited contact with the outside world.Greenland got home rule in 1979, giving the population control over most of its internal affairs. Since 2009, Greenlanders have had the right to hold a referendum on independence.Denmark controls Greenland’s foreign policy, defense and other aspects of its governance. And the island is still largely economically dependent on Denmark: Greenland receives an enormous annual subsidy that pays for schools, cheap gas and strong social services.Can Trump take over Greenland?By any measure, it would not be easy.Last year, in an address to Congress, Mr. Trump said: “I think we’re going to get it — one way or the other.” It is not clear how he would do that.Military intervention would rip apart the central agreement that underpins NATO, of which Denmark and the United States are both founding members. But Mr. Trump has refused to rule it out. While there was a “good possibility that we could do it without military force,” he said last year, “I don’t take anything off the table.”Mr. Trump has also tried to use economic leverage to sway public opinion. In his first term, he floated the idea of buying the island.In a social media post last year, he made a direct pitch to Greenlanders: “We are ready to INVEST BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to create new jobs and MAKE YOU RICH.”But Greenland’s government moved to ban foreign and anonymous political funding in an effort “to safeguard Greenland’s political integrity.”Greenlanders are happy to do business with the United States, but they are not interested in being absorbed: Polls show that at least 85 percent oppose the idea.How does Denmark’s military compare with the U.S.’?Denmark is a military minnow.The United States has the most powerful military in the world with more than 1.3 million active duty service members.Denmark is scrambling to increase its defense capabilities and bring more people into its military, which has between 7,000 and 9,000 professional troops in its army, excluding soldiers in basic training.Its security has relied heavily on its membership in NATO, which has bound Denmark — like much of Europe — to the United States for decades.“No one in Denmark has any kind of illusion that we should try to defend Greenland against the U.S.,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, a think tank, said. “It would be impossible.”