OPINION — “I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland (laughter in audience). We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And, if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international world security. We are working with everybody involved to try to get it….And I think we’re going to get it. (pause) One way or another, we’re going to get it.”
That was President Donald Trump, an hour into last Tuesday’s address to before a joint session of the Congress, making what I and others thought sounded like a threat to use force to take possession of Greenland if necessary.
Watching it on television, I noticed that Trump, who had been reading from a teleprompter, had turned away from the script and seemed to be ad-libbing when he said the words, “One way or another, we’re going to get it.”
I found the statement offensive, along with the fact that the comment drew laughter from Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, both seated behind Trump, as well as from some Republicans in the audience.
I thought then, as I do now, there is nothing funny about an American President, like a mob boss, bullying another country, in this case to take over its giant island with a small population (57,000) that currently is a self-governing part of longtime U.S. ally, Denmark.
Number one issue in Greenland election: The U.S.
In fact, Greenland holds its elections today for its 31-seat parliament, with the outcome expected to determine the speed with which Greenland moves to become a small but independent country.
Rasmus Jarlov, a conservative member of the Danish parliament, an the Chairman of Denmark’s Defense Committee and Spokesperson on Greenlandic Affairs for the Conservatives, wrote yesterday on X about a January poll that showed “only 6% of Greenlanders want to join the USA while 85% reject the idea. The claim that Greenland wants to join the US is completely made up. They absolutely do not.”
No surprise that this past Sunday evening, Trump went on his Truth Social website with a message for Greenland voters, repeating his support for their independence and his offer for them to “be part of the Greatest Nation anywhere in the World, the United States of America!”
Making Greenland rich again?
Trump did not repeat his threat to “get” their country “one way or another,” but he did write to Greenland voters yesterday that, “We are ready to INVEST BILLIONS OF DOLLARS [in Greenland] to create new jobs and MAKE YOU RICH.”
Trump did have the “make you rich” part in last week’s speech and I discuss the basis for that further below.
Yesterday, while flying back to Washington from Florida, during an informal press interview, Trump repeated, “We have to have Greenland,” using only national security as the reason.
But I want to point out that last week and again yesterday, Trump ignored the long and complex 80-year history of Greenland’s acceptance of U.S. military activities in Greenland, including American-run air and naval bases, weather stations, even at one point the storage of nuclear weapons and a secretly-built, World War II underground facility. These U.S. activities all had, and continue to have, as their primary purpose defense of the American homeland.
Given that situation, it’s been a bargain for Washington to have had the use of property in Greenland over eight decades without paying rent as the U.S. does, for example, for a similar, multi-use base in the South Pacific’s Marshall Islands.
Today in Greenland there is the U.S. Pituffik Space Base (pronounced bee-doo-FEEK), formerly known as Thule Air Base, where some 200 active duty U.S. Air Force and Space Force personnel carry out ballistic missile early warnings, missile defense, and space surveillance missions supported by what the Space Force described as an “Upgraded Early Warning Radar weapon system.”
In addition, there are another 400 representatives from other U.S. government agencies and private contractors working on the U.S.-run base to support the military missions, along with Danish Arctic Command personnel in the Danish Liaison Office; Danish Police; and some Canadian military and researchers funded by international agencies.
Trump also failed to mention that there is a 1951 agreement with Denmark, which as amended in 2004 says, “The Government of the United States will consult with and inform the Government of the Kingdom of Denmark, including the Home Rule Government of Greenland, prior to the implementation of any significant changes to United States military operations or facilities in Greenland.”
Greenland already meets the needs for our U.S. “national security and even international world security,” as Trump put it last week, by what Americans are already doing there or could be doing under current arrangements.
As I see it, there must be something else on Trump’s mind that makes him want to own Greenland so much.
Trump’s carrot and stick
In last Tuesday’s speech, Trump, having threatened the takeover-maybe-by-force stick at Greenland, then offered the carrot. “We will keep you safe. We will make you rich,” he said, adding, “Together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before. It’s a very small population, a very, very large piece of land and very, very, important for military security.”
In August 2019, Trump had talked about buying Greenland from the Danes, but the answer came back from Greenland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “We’re open for business, not for sale.”
After Trump’s Tuesday speech, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Bourup Egede wrote, “Greenland is ours. Americans and their leader must understand that. We do not want to be Americans, nor Danes…Our future is determined by us in Greenland.”
The “make you rich” part of the pitch to the Greenland people, as well as Sunday’s “We are ready to INVEST BILLIONS OF DOLLARS,” is related to Trump’s new desire for the U.S. to gain access to rare earth elements on the island — elements needed to build, among other things, phones, batteries for electric vehicles and semiconductors.
Rare earth business deals are obviously on Trump’s mind, since they are also key to his peacemaking with Ukraine and his awkward talk about making Canada the 51st state.
China controls nearly 70% of global production of rare earths and about 90% of processing capacity for the minerals. China also was the source for 72 % of the U.S.’s rare earth imports in 2022, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Greenland’s deposits represent a potential alternative source for these vital materials.
In North America, measured and indicated resources of rare earths were estimated by USGS to include 3.6 million tons in the United States and more than 14 million tons in Canada. A 2023 survey by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre said that Greenland possesses 25 of the 34 minerals the European Commission deems “critical raw materials.” Greenland is believed to have 1.5 million tons of these materials. USGS has also identified potential offshore Greenland deposits of oil and natural gas.
But unlocking this potential will require investment and skilled personnel, according to Florian Vidal, a political scientist from Norway’s Arctic Institute. “This will be the biggest challenge for Greenland over the coming decade,” Vidal said.
Another challenge is that rare earth elements are in areas where uranium may also exist. Greenland environmentalists and others object to uranium mining, which became an issue in Greenland’s last parliamentary elections in 2021. At that time, the victors supported a uranium mining ban. As a result, a mining bill was passed that halted uranium mining, but rare earth projects are now also in abeyance.
Normally, the economy and perhaps independence from Denmark would have been the major issues for Greenland voters. But since Trump spoke up, as one press report put it Sunday: “The overriding issue is clear: Go American, stay Danish, or aim for independence.”
So here we have another example of how President Trump’s marginally-explained interest in a foreign country has become central to that country’s citizens.
What has caused Trump to focus on Ukraine is understandable, although what he has done, is doing and where it seems to be going deserves a column of its own. His approach to Canada, under the same rare earth rubric, also needs further explanation.
With Greenland, Trump’s interest began in his first term with friends, and it could in some way this time be tied to his pal, and now Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick. The New York Times has reported that Lutnick, through his former firm Cantor Fitzgerald, invested in the company Critical Metals Corp., which has had plans to start mining in Greenland in 2026.
Trump’s interest in Greenland has to go beyond just national and international security interests, because as history shows, the U.S. has had a virtual free hand to do what Washington felt needed to protect the homeland for the past 80 years.
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