Photograph Source: Quintin Soloviev – CC-SA 4.0

Donald Trump’s campaign to bring Greenland under United States control has often been dismissed as bluster. That is a mistake. Behind the language of a property deal lies a serious attempt to revive an old imperial principle: that Washington may decide the political and economic future of the entire Western Hemisphere. Greenland, strategically placed between North America and Europe, has become a test of that claim – and of whether the sovereignty of a small Indigenous nation counts when it conflicts with the ambitions of a great power.

Trump floated buying Greenland during his first presidency in 2019. After his re-election, the proposal became more aggressive. In December 2024 he declared US ‘ownership and control’ of Greenland as an ‘absolute necessity’. On 7 January 2025, he refused to rule out military or economic coercion against Greenland and the Panama Canal, saying, ‘We need Greenland for national security purposes’. He subsequently insisted that the United States would obtain the island ‘one way or the other’. The claim mixed several arguments: Greenland is vital to missile defence, Russia and China threaten the Arctic, Greenland’s rare-earth deposits are strategically valuable, and Greenlanders would supposedly welcome US rule.

The last claim was demonstrably false. A January 2025 survey conducted in both Greenlandic and Danish found that 85 per cent of Greenland’s population opposed leaving the Danish realm to join the United States, while only 6 per cent supported it. Yet the same poll showed a majority favouring eventual independence. That distinction is central. Greenlanders’ desire to end Danish colonial tutelage cannot be converted into consent to US annexation.

A military relationship without annexation

The security case for US ownership is misleading because Washington already enjoys extensive military rights in Greenland. The relationship began during the Second World War. With Denmark occupied by Nazi Germany, its ambassador in Washington signed a 1941 agreement permitting the United States to defend Greenland and construct facilities there. Denmark sought a US withdrawal after the war, but Cold War strategy prevailed.

The 1951 Defence of Greenland Agreement, concluded under the North Atlantic Treaty, authorised the United States to establish and operate ‘defence areas’. It enabled the rapid construction of Thule Air Base – renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023 – at a location ideal for........

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