The West should stand by Donald Trump’s attempt to buy Greenland

Over Christmas, President-elect Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social site that “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

Trump’s overture, while highly unwelcome to the Danes, is not a new idea. He made the proposal first in 2019. When Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen described the idea as “absurd” and said, “Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let’s leave it there,” Trump promptly canceled his visit to Copenhagen.

Frederiksen has been equally dismissive this time round. But the main response has come from Greenland’s premier, Múte Bourup Egede: “Greenland is ours. We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.” The struggle for freedom of course does not refer to the United States but to Denmark. Egede is chairman of the socialist Inuit Ataqatigiit Party which is fighting for a fully independent sovereign Greenland. 

Denmark’s historic links to Greenland are tenuous. According to the Icelandic sagas, Greenland was colonized in the tenth century by Erik the Red after his exile from Iceland. But Norse occupation seems to have been wiped out by the fifteenth century. Racially, Greenland’s population of 56,000 people (living on an island nearly ten times bigger than the UK) is Inuit not Scandinavian. 

Until the Danish constitution was revised in 1953, Greenland was a colony. Thereafter it was designated as a county and a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Home rule was granted in 1979 and in 2008 a referendum approved the Self-Government Act which transferred further powers to Greenland. Denmark still retains control of foreign policy, defense and security. 

The idea of buying Greenland and other Arctic territories has history. In 1867, under the presidency of Andrew Johnson, secretary of state William Seward bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. It became mockingly known as Seward’s “Ice Box.” At the same time, Seward, clearly a real estate dealer at heart, also tried to purchase Greenland. Congress was not enthusiastic, and the idea lapsed — until that is President Harry Truman offered to buy Greenland for $100 million in 1946. 

The rejection of the purchase deal did not prevent Denmark granting the United States the right to set up an Air Force base at Thule which became a key US outpost in the Cold War. This gets to the nub of Trump’s current interest in Greenland. There is a new Cold War in play. This time it is China-Russia alliance which is battling the United States for global domination. As I noted here in 2020:

“China claims the same rights as Norway to exploit the resources of the Norwegian-controlled Svalbard archipelago. China further argues that UNCLOS [United States Convention of the law of the Sea], which it has ratified, gives it rights over the “Arctic Belt and Road.”

Since then, there have been two developments that make the issue of Greenland even more important to global security. Firstly, the war in Ukraine has pushed Russia ever deeper into China’s maw. This matters because of Russia’s extravagant claims to the Arctic. All the Arctic countries can claim ownership of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) 200 miles from their shore. But Russia, Canada and Greenland claim ownership of an underwater mountain shelf, the Lomonosov Ridge which extends for over 1,000 miles into the Arctic and includes a peak that rises 2.1 miles from the ocean floor. 

Thus far Russia is winning. In February 2023 a UN Commission, after studying Russian date provisionally gave Moscow’s claim the “highest authority.” American naval research expert Elizabeth Buchan has called this a “major win in the Arctic seabed legal battle.” As Dr. Javed Zafar in his paper for DIPAM (Center for Diplomatic Affairs and Diplomatic Studies) concluded:

‘Russia’s triumph in this case not only cements its strategic dominance in the Arctic but also provides significant economic advantage’

A second change which makes America nervous about security is that in 2022 the Chinese navy overtook the US navy in size with 234 operating warships to 219. On certain metrics the US is still ahead but the direction of travel is clear. Significantly, the US Navy is much older. About 70 percent of the Chinese Navy was commissioned after 2010 compared to 25 percent for the United States. Even US naval intelligence puts Chinese warships on a par with America in terms of quality. 

If combined with the Russian Navy, the United States is a long way behind the China-Russia alliance. In the Arctic the United States is particularly weak. Unlike America, Russia has a permanent Arctic fleet based in Murmansk. Russia also possesses forty-one icebreakers of different classes including numbers of heavy ships including the world’s only nuclear-powered icebreakers. By contrast the US, at a cost of $1.9 billion only committed to its first heavy icebreakers for forty-six years on Christmas Eve this year.

It can only be a concern too that Greenland, a very socialist country, is so open to Chinese investment. Even when the European Union requested restrictions on Chinese mining of rare earth minerals, Greenland baulked and replied that “Greenland is open for investments from the whole world.” As Chuan Chen, a lecturer at the University of Copenhagen has concluded:

China, a deep-pocketed investor with a huge consumer market, could play a key role in the development of Greenland’s three industries [mining, fishing and tourism].

For Greenland, sucking up to China is a play for full independence. But for America it is a potential geopolitical disaster. Could a future government there rescind its current arrangements on the US space base at Pituffik? 

So, Donald Trump’s concerns about Greenland are not outlandish as the West’s liberal media imagines. Furthermore, expansion by purchase may be a foreign concept to Europeans but it represents a consequential part of American history. 

In 1803, the United States acquired from Napoleon a territory of 830,000 square miles for $15 million — an area stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border. Sixteen years later Florida was bought from Spain for $5 million. After the US walloped Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1848, at the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, President James Polk agreed to pay for a territory that today comprises California, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Arizona. The Gadsden Purchase in 1854 added further territory to these last two states. 

The Philippines followed as a $20 million purchase from Spain after the US Navy sank its fleet in Manilla Bay in 1898 following the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in Cuba. The last major US acquisition was the Danish Virgin Islands which it purchased for $25 million in 1917. In aggregate the purchase of territories accounts for roughly 40 percent of the United States’s landmass. 

The historical precedents are clear. While a potential acquisition of Greenland looks unlikely there are compelling reasons why this would be of benefit to the West’s security. Economically it would probably benefit Greenlanders too. The West should support Donald Trump in his expansionary ambitions.