Why and how Trump wants Greenland

Based on recent statements from European leaders, you could be forgiven for forgetting that the United States just captured the incumbent leader of Venezuela. That’s because their attention has, overwhelmingly, been focused elsewhere: To the north, on Greenland.

Europe’s leadership, always stuck in the second half of the 20th century, seems perplexed with Trump’s dogged determination to bring the island of Greenland under American control. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said it made “absolutely no sense to talk about the need for the United States to take over Greenland,” given America’s relationship with Denmark which, in her telling, “gives the United States wide access to Greenland.” Similar statements were released by even close Trump allies, such as Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who signed onto a statement highlighting that the United States already has a “defence agreement” with Denmark, and by extension, with Greenland.

Underneath this all is a sense of genuine confusion, centred around two questions: 1) Why? and 2) How?

The first seems to be befuddling Europeans the most. Why would the United States desire to conquer a country in which they already have a space (formerly air) base, and which is a member of NATO? The answer is befuddling Europeans because it does not lie in the present – it lies in the future. The far future.

Right now, Denmark is indeed a model ally of the United States. The country spends roughly 2.4 per cent of its GDP on defence; not enough, but certainly better than many others. It purchases American weapons, and it also has been the only social democrat-led European country to take a definitively anti-migrant stance.

But the Trump administration is not concerned about that right now. The goal of the second Trump administration is to use its four years to prepare for the next forty, and beyond. This is akin to the work the Truman and Eisenhower administrations did in laying the groundwork for the roughly forty years of the Cold War. Both of those administrations undertook actions which would today be seen as incredibly undemocratic or aggressive, from interfering in the first post-war Italian elections to block a communist victory, to interventions in Guatemala. The goal here was not wanton imperialism: It was to ensure that the United States would be in a good place to confront and constrain the Soviet Union. Losing Italy democratically to a communist government (as it had in the Czech Republic two years prior) would have been disastrous, giving the Soviet Union a major role in a key central union and Mediterranean power. Likewise, socialist-friendly governments in the Americas would have produced the same effect that NATO had on the Soviet Union, slowly pressing in on the United States. Which is why the United States took action against anything remotely socialistic, from Guatemala in Eisenhower’s day to Argentina in Richard Nixon’s.

Greenland fits into this pattern. The Danish have indeed been led by an anti-migrant government; but the social democrats have fallen in their polls, and the far more left-wing Green Left is in a close second. If Denmark eventually begins to import migrants akin to other European countries, it will, in decades to come, fundamentally change Danish politics. In Austria, Muslims may make up 20 per cent of the population in the coming decades. This will fundamentally change politics, both foreign and domestic. The United States cannot assume that Denmark and the rest of Europe, a continent which has not worked to defend its own civilisation, will continue to abide by previous defence agreements.

Europe, which is led by globalist liberal internationalists, does not understand this concern: To them, the goal is the diversification of European civilisation. This is the fundamental difference and why there is so much misunderstanding: European leaders believe they are doing the right thing, something which was preached by the United States for a long time (“Diversity is our strength”) and they cannot understand why America sees this as a threat. But America, as it laid out in the recent National Security Strategy, holds that Europe’s migrant issue will create “an open question whether [Europeans] will view their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”

And potentially losing influence over Greenland is a risk America simply cannot take. Greenland, as an American hemispheric entity, falls under the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which holds that the United States cannot risk other powers gaining influence anywhere in the hemisphere or the North Atlantic. Control of Greenland threatens both areas. In the world wars, Americans looked nervously across the Atlantic and the Pacific for signs of German ships and, later, Japanese planes. America solved those problems by keeping troops in Europe and in Japan after 1945. While the need for the former is quickly evaporating, gaining control of Greenland will help keep seeing fears of enemy vessels arriving from across the Atlantic from ever returning.

How, then, will the United States seek to achieve this? Military action is doable; Europe’s Wakanda-posting aside, there is no way that they could stop the United States from occupying the island. But the Trump administration is not likely to seek an immediate military solution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently told Congress that the Trump administration is seeking to pressure Denmark into selling Greenland. An agreement would likely be along the lines of a compact of free association, which would see Greenland be able to mind its own affairs, with the United States being responsible for its defence. Territorialisation – be it becoming a literal territory, such as Puerto Rico, or a state – is less likely, as most desired goals would be achieved with a compact of free association.

Statehood for a relatively left-wing place like Greenland would weaken the Trump administration (as it would immediately provide two more Democrat senators), and also is simply unnecessary. If the Greenlanders are seeking independence, forced territorialisation will prove, though not impossible, difficult. But with a compact, everyone can get what they want.

Europe dragged its feet for roughly ten years, from 2015 to 2025, before it realised that the United States was serious about it defending itself. Even today, much of that suppose rearmament is smoke and mirrors. Now, they are likewise slow to understanding why the United States wants Greenland. Understanding why may require them to face some hard truths. But for their own sake, they should face them sooner, rather than later.

Or, they could stay stuck in the 20th century. It won’t change things for the United States either way.