{"id":8572,"date":"2025-01-30T06:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T21:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/?p=8572"},"modified":"2025-01-26T22:37:14","modified_gmt":"2025-01-26T13:37:14","slug":"trumps-greenland-bid-is-really-about-control-of-the-arctic-and-the-coming-battle-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/news\/trumps-greenland-bid-is-really-about-control-of-the-arctic-and-the-coming-battle-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Greenland Bid is Really About Control of the Arctic and the Coming Battle with China"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Stefan Wolff\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was first published by\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0on 10 January 2025 and is republished<\/a> under Creative Commons Licence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Donald Trump first<\/a> offered to buy Greenland in 2019, he was widely ridiculed and nothing much came of it, apart from a cancelled<\/a> state visit to Denmark. Fast forward six years and Trump\u2019s renewed \u201cbid\u201d for the world\u2019s largest island is back on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And with renewed vigour at that. In an interview<\/a> on January 7, the incoming US president refused to rule out the use of force to take possession of Greenland and he dispatched<\/a> his son, Don Jr, \u201cand various representatives<\/a>\u201d there on January 8, 2025, to underline his seriousness. With Elon Musk on board<\/a> as well, money may not be an obstacle to any deal that Trump envisages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump is not the first US politician to try to buy Greenland. The earliest documented attempt to acquire the island goes back to 1868<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last serious pre-Trump effort is that by President Harry S. Truman\u2019s government in 1946<\/a>. Trump\u2019s renewed interest in Greenland thus stands in a long tradition of American efforts of territorial expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even without this historical background, Trump\u2019s latest bid is less irrational today than it may have seemed back in 2019. On the one hand, Greenland is exceptionally rich in so-called \u201ccritical minerals\u201d. According to a 2024 report<\/a> in the Economist, the island has known deposits of 43 of 50 of these minerals. According to the US Department of Energy<\/a>, these minerals are essential for \u201ctechnologies that produce, transmit, store, and conserve energy\u201d and have \u201ca high risk of supply chain disruption\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latter certainly is a valid concern given that China\u2014a key supplier of several critical minerals to global markets\u2014has been increasing restrictions<\/a> on its exports as part of an ongoing<\/a> trade war with the US. Access to Greenland\u2019s resources would give Washington more supply chain security and limit any leverage that China could to bring to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic value<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greenland\u2019s strategic location also makes it valuable to the US. An existing US base, Pituffik Space Base<\/a>, is key to US missile early warning and defence and plays a critical role in space surveillance. Future expansion of the base could also enhance US capabilities to monitor Russian naval movements in the Arctic Ocean and the north Atlantic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US sovereignty over Greenland, if Trump\u2019s deal comes to pass, would also effectively forestall any moves by rivals, especially China<\/a>, to get a foothold on the island. This may be less of a concern if Greenland remains part of NATO member Denmark which has kept the island economically afloat with an annual grant of around US$500 million (\u00a3407 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a growing independence movement in Greenland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Greenland\u2019s independence<\/a>\u2014support for which has been steadily growing\u2014could open the door to more, and less regulated, foreign investment. In this case, China<\/a> is seen as particularly keen to step in should the opportunity arise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add to that growing<\/a> security cooperation between Russia and China and the fact that Russia has generally become more militarily aggressive, and Trump\u2019s case looks yet more credible. Nor is he the only one to have raised the alarm bells: Canada<\/a>, Denmark<\/a> and Norway<\/a> have all recently pushed back against an increasing Russian and Chinese footprint in the Arctic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the problem with Trump\u2019s proposal is not that it is based on a flawed diagnosis of the underlying issue it tries to address. Growing Russian and Chinese influence in the Arctic region in general is a security problem at a time of rising geopolitical rivalry<\/a>. In this context, Greenland undeniably poses a particular and significant security vulnerability for the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flaws in Trump\u2019s plan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is Trump\u2019s \u201cAmerica first\u201d tunnel vision of looking for a solution. Insisting that he wants Greenland and that he will get it \u2013 even if that means exceptional tariffs on Danish exports (think Novo Nordisk\u2019s weightloss drugs<\/a>) or the use of force<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Predictably, Greenland<\/a> and Denmark<\/a> rejected the new \u201coffer\u201d. And key allies, including France<\/a> and Germany<\/a>, rushed to their ally\u2019s defence \u2013 figuratively for now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than strengthening US security, Trump is arguably effectively weakening it by, yet again, undermining the western alliance. Not only does the irony of doing so in the north Atlantic appear to be lost on Trump. But it also seems that there is an even more fundamental problem at work here in that this kind of 19th century-style territorial expansionism reflects Trump\u2019s isolationist impulses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIncorporating\u201d Greenland into the US would likely insulate Washington from the disruption of critical mineral supply chains and keep Russia and China at bay. And signalling that he will do it whatever the cost is an indication that, beyond the kind of bluster and bombast that is normally associated with Trump, his approach to foreign policy will quickly do away with any gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than investing in strengthening security cooperation with Denmark and the rest of its NATO and European allies to face down Russia and China in the Arctic and beyond, Trump and his team may well think that the US can get away with this. Given that what is at stake here are relations with the US\u2019s hitherto closest allies, this is an enormous, and unwarranted, gamble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No great power in history has been able to go it alone forever \u2013 and even taking possession of Greenland, by hook or by crook, is unlikely to change this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related articles:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the Monroe Doctrine?<\/a> (3-minute read)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump 2.0: Curse or blessing<\/a> (3 minute read)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump 2.0<\/a> (3-minute read)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stefan Wolff<\/strong><\/a> is Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Stefan Wolff\u00a0 This article was first published by\u00a0The Conversation\u00a0on 10 January 2025 and is republished under Creative Commons Licence. When Donald Trump first offered to buy Greenland in 2019, he was widely ridiculed and nothing much came of it, apart from a cancelled state visit to Denmark. Fast forward six years and Trump\u2019s renewed \u201cbid\u201d for the world\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,39,93,32],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-north-america","9":"category-politics","10":"category-regions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8576,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572\/revisions\/8576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inpsjapan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}