When Donald Trump Jr. landed in Greenland last week — flying in aboard “Trump Force One,” with two of his father’s top advisors, plus right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, in tow — he claimed that he’d come as a tourist. Speaking to a small group of spectators at the recently opened international airport in Nuuk, a city of about 20,000 people just below the Arctic circle, he intimated that he was there to see the sights and gather material for his podcast on a “very long personal day trip.” Greenland, he said, is an “awesome country” and the scenery “spectacular.” After stopping by the national museum, he said he was impressed with the “old hunting styles” and “clothes” of the island’s early inhabitants.
The Trump team, in typical fashion, claimed victory after the visit, citing support from the locals in Nuuk and quickly distributing a polished, campaign-style video. But Politico, the Washington Post, and Danish news outlet DR News have reported that the visit was at least in part “staged” and that many of the MAGA-hat wearing residents who dined with the president’s son were living on the margins and had essentially been bribed to attend.
One thing we do know is that Don Jr. was not there purely for natural beauty or local history. The bigger reason for his visit seemed to be advancing his father’s ambitions to acquire the island, which Donald Trump first floated in 2019 after reportedly being briefed at the White House by Greg Barnes, an Australian mining geologist and owner of one of the largest rare-earth deposits in Greenland. Ronald Lauder, a longtime friend of Trump’s and heir to the Estée Lauder fortune, has also pushed the idea.
Trump’s unsolicited offer to buy Greenland from Denmark — which first colonized the island in the 18th Century and still retains control of its security and foreign policy — was widely lampooned at the time. The Danish prime minister called it absurd, sparking a row between the two countries and leading Trump to subsequently cancel a planned visit to Denmark. The bid essentially went nowhere beyond late night punchlines.
MAGA Manifest Destiny goes mainstream
Since Trump’s reelection, however, the idea of a purchase — or outright occupation — has come roaring back and is no longer being brushed aside as the talk of a madman. A party that was, up until the election, described as non-interventionist, has suddenly embraced a kind of 19th Century expansionist mindset — what some have referred to as a MAGA-oriented Manifest Destiny. This Monday, House Republicans introduced a bill, the Make Greenland Great Again Act, authorizing the president to enter into negotiations with Denmark to purchase the island. In an appearance on Fox News the day before, Vice President-elect JD Vance, in a notably patronizing tone, said Greenland needs to be “properly cared for from an American security perspective.” Even Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman — the contrarian Democrat who paid court to Trump at Mar-a-Lago this past weekend — has expressed support for the idea of purchasing the island.
Trump’s unsolicited 2019 offer to buy Greenland from Denmark was widely lampooned at the time. But since his reelection, the idea of a purchase — or outright occupation — is no longer being brushed aside as the talk of a madman.
In part because of its size, remoteness and low population density — only about 56,000 people live there — Greenland has also become an object of desire for some of the Silicon Valley power brokers interested in establishing a kind of libertarian playground outside of the United States. Billionaire Palantir cofounder and Trump fundraiser Joe Lonsdale told the BBC that Greenland’s resources could be of enormous benefit to the United States and, in an implicit invocation of earlier eras of U.S. expansionism, that “having a frontier is very healthy.” Some have gone further. Dryden Brown, whose company, Praxis, raised millions as part of a scheme to create a privately-funded city in the Mediterranean, traveled to Greenland in 2024 and described the island as “an actual frontier” that could serve as a “sandbox for terraformation.”
Donald Trump Jr. poses after arriving in Nuuk, Greenland on Jan. 7, 2025.
Image: Emil Statch/Ritzau Scanpix via AP
“Western Hemisphere First”
None of this is entirely new. In recent years, both Democratic and Republican administrations have cast Greenland as central to U.S. security in the Arctic and squarely within America’s sphere of influence. Its strategic importance has grown against the backdrop of a rapidly warming climate and deteriorating diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia — both of which extend into the Arctic — and China, which, in an effort to stake its own claims in the region, declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in 2018. One of Antony Blinken’s first trips overseas as President Joe Biden’s secretary of state was to Greenland and Denmark. And while one of Trump’s recent explanations for his Arctic ambitions — that Greenland is being surrounded by Chinese and Russian ships — is mostly groundless, recent encounters with Russian and Chinese vessels in the Bering Sea, off the coast of Alaska, have ratcheted up tensions in the region.
But despite all of the anxiety — or sometimes fearmongering — about Chinese and Russian influence in the region, the United States has mostly gotten its way: The U.S. military, with assistance from the Danes, has effectively kept China from gaining a toehold in Greenland, as the world’s superpowers vie for dominance of the far north. Under Biden, the State Department has quietly advanced U.S. interests in the region largely through diplomacy and investments in education, mining and tourism — one sign of which is that the first direct flights from Newark to Nuuk will begin later this month.
Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, told Fox News last week that, along with taking control of the Panama Canal, annexing Greenland would be part of a broader “Western Hemisphere First” doctrine.
On the cusp of taking office, Trump is now pursuing a more bellicose strategy from the outgoing administration. In announcing Howery as his pick for ambassador to Denmark in November, Trump noted that “ownership and control of Greenland” is a matter of national security and necessary for global freedom, though he did not explain why. On Jan. 7, during a rambling press conference at Mar-a-Lago several hours after Don Jr. departed Nuuk, Trump said he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of using military force or economic coercion — in the form of tariffs aimed at Denmark — to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal. He has also mused about turning Canada into a 51st state.
Meanwhile, a coterie of former advisers, including Tom Dans, a Heritage Foundation fellow who was appointed to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission during Trump’s first term, has been busy promoting the idea of possibly buying Greenland or entering into a “compact of free association,” similar to U.S. agreements with islands in the western Pacific, and giving the United States exclusive military access to Greenland in exchange for economic development assistance. (Dans’ brother Paul was the architect of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.) It is worth noting, however, that the United States already benefits from a similar arrangement with Greenland, while Denmark is on the hook for funding the government and providing other services.
Other would-be advisors are pushing a much more aggressive idea of U.S. territorial expansion. Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff of the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, told Fox News last week that, along with taking control of the Panama Canal, annexing Greenland would be part of a broader “Western Hemisphere First” doctrine.
Not for sale
Greenland and Denmark have rejected any sort of offer from Trump, repeating the line that the island is open for business but not for sale.
At a press conference in Nuuk on Monday, Greenland’s Prime Minister Mute Egede reiterated, “Greenland’s independence is Greenland’s business, also in relation to the use of its land, so it is also Greenland that will decide what agreement we should come to.”
“They’re unified in their assessment that this is completely inappropriate and a non-starter,” said Marisol Maddox, a Senior Arctic Fellow at the Institute of Arctic Studies at Dartmouth, referring to Trump’s offer.
Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for international Studies in Copenhagen, said it is too early to know what Trump’s maneuvering will mean for the delicate trilateral partnership between Denmark, Greenland and the United States.
“Under international law you cannot buy a colonial territory,” Pram Gad said. “In principle, Greenlanders could vote to give away sovereignty and sell to the U.S. But that is counter to everything they’ve been trying to do for the last few decades.”
Pipaluk Lynge, a member of Greenland’s parliament and chair of its Foreign and Security Policy Committee, in an interview with the country’s largest daily newspaper, Sermitsiaq, said Greenland’s values align more with Europe on everything from climate change and women’s rights to the role of the welfare state.
“We want continued cooperation on equal terms, and not to subordinate ourselves to another country,” she said.
There is interest in Greenland for closer relations with the United States, but much of it is driven by resentment of Denmark and a genuine desire for greater autonomy.
There is interest in Greenland for closer relations with the United States, but much of it is driven by resentment of Denmark and a genuine desire for greater autonomy. David Qujaukitsok, a translator in the village of Qaanaaq, told me that the Danish government has failed to improve the lives of people living in this remote community. “We feel we’ve been forgotten,” he told me. “We need a change up here.” But, he added, that doesn’t mean they want to be under the thumb of another colonial regime.
A toxic legacy
Trump is not the first U.S. president to set his sights on Greenland, which has served as a strategic bulwark and staging ground for the United States since the end of World War II. The United States once had more than a dozen military installations on the island — many of which have left behind a legacy of toxic pollution — and still operates a major base, Pituffik Space Base, in the far northwestern corner of the country near the village of Qaanaaq. Its radar installations are considered key to North American security, and the United States is currently investing hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades to the Pituffik base.
When I traveled to Qaanaaq in 2023 for an In These Times/Type Investigations story on U.S. military and economic policy in the Arctic, residents bitterly recalled the forced relocation of Inuit communities after the war to make way for the U.S. base and, in 1968, the fallout from a B-52 bomber that crashed and exploded on the ice in an area frequented by local hunters. The aircraft was carrying four thermonuclear bombs, and many of the men who helped in the search and rescue effort later died of cancer. The episode, which caused a major diplomatic rift between the United States and Denmark, also led to the exposure of a covert U.S. nuclear weapons program on the island — including a missile silo built under the ice sheet, known as “Project Iceworm” — that had been kept hidden from Greenlandic leaders and its people for nearly two decades.
Greenland is not only viewed as a military asset. The country possesses enormous mineral wealth, which is increasingly driving U.S. policy in the region even if mining activity has, until now, been quite limited and obstacles to developing the resources remain. The southern end of the island is home to two of the largest rare-earth metal deposits in the world, and the western coast is believed to have large supplies of nickel, titanium, zinc and graphite. The federal government, through the U.S. Export-Import Bank, has in recent years explored the possibility of financing mining ventures in Greenland as part of a broader effort to reduce U.S. dependence on China, the world’s largest producer of rare earth metals. Some of the world’s wealthiest individuals have also had their eyes on Greenland. KoBold — a mining exploration startup with backing from Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg—has been looking at mineral deposits near Disko Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its natural beauty and ice fjords.
And pressure to advance these projects is only likely to grow. In December, perhaps in anticipation of Trump’s return to office, China announced that it was banning the sale of several rare-earth minerals to the United States.
“We want continued cooperation on equal terms, and not to subordinate ourselves to another country.”
What Trump and others have failed to acknowledge — perhaps because it doesn’t further their expansionist aims — is that U.S.-Greenlandic relations have improved considerably in recent years. In 2020, not long after Trump’s initial offer to buy Greenland, the United States reopened its consulate in Nuuk, and the State Department has been working with the Greenlandic government to overhaul its mineral leasing and permitting program. In 2023, the U.S. military renamed its base in Greenland — from Thule to Pituffik — to reflect a local Inuit place name, and apologized for some of the abuses of the past. Nuuk, too, has benefited from an influx of foreign investment and its emergence as a strategic hub in the region.
There are many reasons why Trump and those around him would be interested in having greater access to Greenland or buying it outright. Its stock has risen as the United States, Russia and China compete for resources, territory and control of shipping lanes in a fast-changing Arctic.
But Trump’s motivation may also be simpler than that. In 2021 he told the journalists Peter Baker and Susan Glasser that he viewed Greenland through the lens of a real estate developer.
“I love maps,” Trump told them, perhaps referring to the 16th Century Mercator Projection, which famously shows the island to be much bigger than it actually is. “Look at the size of this,” Trump continued. “It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.”