Sermitsiaq Mountain looms behind a row of homes in Nuuk, Greenland, on March 4, 2025.
Odd Andersen | Afp | Getty Photos
U.S. President Donald Trump is fixated on taking management of Greenland, an unlimited, sparsely populated and mineral-rich island located between the Arctic Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean.
“It is so strategic,” Trump instructed reporters on board Air Power One on Sunday. “Proper now, Greenland is roofed with Russian and Chinese language ships far and wide. We want Greenland from the standpoint of nationwide safety.”
His feedback, which got here sizzling on the heels of an audacious army operation in Venezuela, sounded the alarm throughout Europe, with Denmark warning that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the tip of the NATO army alliance.
The U.S. president, nonetheless, is but to waver. Certainly, the White Home ramped up transatlantic tensions even additional on Tuesday, saying that Trump and his workforce are contemplating “a variety of choices” to make the self-governing Danish territory part of the USA — together with “using the U.S. Army.”
Positioned between the U.S. and Russia, Greenland has lengthy been considered as an space of excessive strategic significance, significantly with regards to Arctic safety.
The territory of practically 57,000 individuals is in shut proximity to rising Arctic delivery routes, with the fast melting of ice creating alternatives to considerably cut back Asia-Europe journey time when in comparison with the Suez Canal.
Greenland additionally sits astride the so-called GIUK hole, a naval choke level between Greenland, Iceland and the U.Ok. that hyperlinks the Arctic to the Atlantic Ocean.
Alongside its strategic geopolitical place, Greenland is thought for an abundance of untapped uncooked supplies, from oil and fuel reserves to essential mineral deposits and a treasure trove of uncommon earth parts.
These essential minerals and uncommon earth parts are very important elements in rising applied sciences, similar to wind generators, electrical autos, power storage applied sciences, and nationwide safety purposes. China repeatedly sought to leverage its close to monopoly of uncommon earths to exert stress on the U.S. final 12 months.
“Trump is an actual property man,” Clayton Allen, head of apply at Eurasia Group, a political threat consultancy, instructed CNBC by video name.
“Greenland is sitting on a few of the most respected actual property by way of financial benefit and strategic protection for the following three to 5 a long time.”
Delivery routes
To make sure, the U.S. already has a presence in Greenland. The Pituffik Area Base, previously Thule Air Base, is positioned within the northwest of Greenland, simply throughout the Baffin Bay from Nunavut, Canada.
It’s estimated that round 150 U.S. service members are completely stationed there, down from round 6,000 throughout the Chilly Warfare period.
“For good causes, the U.S. has an early warning air base in northwestern Greenland as a result of the shortest route for a Russian ballistic missile to achieve the continental United States is by way of Greenland and the North Pole,” stated Otto Svendsen, affiliate fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program on the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research (CSIS), a Washington-based suppose tank.
The bottom, which additionally has an lively airfield and is dwelling to the world’s northernmost deep-water port, has historically been pivotal to the monitoring of Russian submarines traversing the GIUK hole, Svendsen stated.
“A more moderen and rising risk or issue is the truth that Greenland straddles two potential delivery routes by means of the Arctic, the Northwest Passage and the Transpolar Sea Route,” Svendsen instructed CNBC by phone.
“And as local weather change continues to render these routes extra viable, there are industrial pursuits there as nicely that add to the nationwide safety worth of the island,” he added.
A fishing boat navigates round icebergs that broke off from the Jakobshavn Glacier and are floating in Disko Bay on March 10, 2025, in Ilulissat, Greenland.
Joe Raedle | Getty Photos Information | Getty Photos
Opinion polls have beforehand proven that Greenlanders overwhelmingly oppose U.S. management, whereas a powerful majority assist independence from Denmark.
‘Golden Dome’
Analysts say that Greenland may show helpful to the U.S. as a staging floor for a larger defensive presence and as a location for U.S. missile interceptors — significantly within the context of one of many Trump administration’s key insurance policies: a “Golden Dome” missile protection system.
The multibillion-dollar initiative, rolled out in Could final 12 months and sometimes in comparison with Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, is a visionary plan designed to defend the U.S. from all missile assaults.
“The U.S. wants entry to the Arctic and it would not actually have that a lot direct entry in the present day. Greenland has an amazing quantity. The U.S. wants air defenses deployed nearer and nearer to Russia to fight subsequent technology weapons that aren’t presently defensible with what we’ve got obtainable. Greenland supplies that,” Eurasia Group’s Allen stated.
“Trump needs to construct a ‘Golden Dome’ over the U.S.,” he continued. “A part of that’s going to need to depend upon Greenland.”
Nationwide or financial safety?
For some, Trump’s assertion that annexing Greenland is a core a part of U.S. nationwide safety has raised eyebrows. The declaration marks a notable shift in tone from nearly a 12 months in the past, when the then president-elect cited “financial safety” as a main issue for annexing the island.
Marion Messmer, director of the Worldwide Safety Programme at London’s Chatham Home suppose tank, acknowledged that it’s true to say that each Russia and China have elevated their army actions within the Arctic lately — and, if Moscow launched missiles on the U.S., they’d probably fly over Greenland.
“Nevertheless, what isn’t clear is why Washington wants full management over Greenland to defend itself,” Messmer stated in a written evaluation revealed Tuesday.
She cited the truth that the U.S. already has a presence at Pituffik Area Base, in addition to a decades-old protection settlement with Denmark that enables Washington to proceed to make use of it.
“In the course of the Chilly Warfare, the US stationed as much as 6,000 troops throughout a variety of camps throughout the island,” Messmer stated. “It may presumably surge troop presence once more if it felt it wanted a larger presence within the area – with out disputing Danish sovereignty.”
