Why Greenland Matters to the US

Teddy Roosevelt’s famous approach to foreign policy was to ‘speak softly, but carry a big stick’. By contrast, Donald Trump bellows at the top of his lungs, but holds out his hand, which, time and again, leads the pearl-clutching chattering classes to underestimate him.

Sometimes, Trump is merely speaking the only language dictators understand, as when he used his thunderous threats of ‘fire and fury’ to put Kim Jong-Un back in his box. His arrest of Nicolas Maduro was as much a shot over the bows of the mullahs of Iran as it was about removing a vicious Latin American strongman.

Other times, the bluff and bluster is intended to scare chicken-hearted globalists straight. When Trump, in his first term, threatened to pull out of NATO completely, grifting EU leaders panicked and finally started to pick up their share of the collective defence tab for the first time in half a century. Similarly, for all the normiecons hyperventilating over Trump’s tariffs, not only are they not hurting the American economy, they’re doing exactly what they were intended to: bring shirking ‘allies’ to heel.

The US and NATO agreed on a long-term Arctic security framework including Greenland, pausing tariffs on European allies amid strategic concerns over Russia and China, Trump said.

President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post that he and Mark Rutte, secretary general of NATO, agreed on “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland and will halt Feb 1 tariffs.

In the case of Greenland and NATO, Trump was giving them both barrels of Donald-style diplomacy.

Earlier, Trump had threatened military action and tariffs over Greenland, backing off force at Davos while threatening a 10 per cent levy starting Feb 1 on Denmark and eight other countries.

So, why does Trump want Greenland so badly? Contrary to the witterings of the legacy media, it’s very far from a fit of Trumpian pique. In fact, it’s at the heart of the defence strategy for the US, and by proxy the West, for the next century. Situated high in the Arctic circle between the US and both Northern Europe and Russia, it’s a key strategic outpost. Not to mention its valuable resources in minerals and fisheries.

As the US forges ahead with its planned ‘Golden Dome’ anti-missile shield (think Israel’s famed Iron Dome, on steroids), its strategic value is only going to grow. Significantly, China has also made its interest in Greenland clear. In 2018, a Chinese white paper detailed its intention to build a “Polar Silk Road”, a clear reference to Xi Xinping’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, ostensibly aimed at promoting Chinese soft power, but too-obviously a debt-diplomacy gambit snaring greedy developing nations in China’s net.

Indeed, Greenland courted Chinese mining companies in the 2010s, but the projects have stalled or failed. Pressure from the United States also helped quash Chinese bids to construct new airports and convert an abandoned Danish naval base into a research station.

Clearly, Trump wants to make sure that that puts an end to China’s attempts to establish a presence in Greenland. In no small part by offering a juicy economic carrot to an ostensibly self-governing Danish province that has often been treated as an afterthought by Copenhagen.

From the establishment of a special envoy for Greenland to purposely vague offers (from $US10,000 to $US100,000 a pop) to the Greenlandic community, Washington is not backing away […]

Still, Greenland’s prime minister has stated publiclym “if we have to choose between the US and Denmark here and now, then we choose Denmark”.

But that all depends on what each is prepared to offer.

Becoming an overseas territory, of which the US has for example Guam and the US Virgin Islands, would afford Nuuk a similar deal to what it has with Denmark right now: under someone else’s sovereignty, albeit with significant self-governance powers. For Nuuk this is undesirable.

Forming a compact of free association, however, maybe an option. The US already has these with, for example, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Republic of Palau. Greenland would be self-governing but, significantly, an independent state.

The US would then provide substantial economic assistance, defence provisions and security.

Whatever happens, Greenlanders will find...

themselves at the centre of geopolitical attention for some time yet.
What happens in Greenland is no longer simply a matter for Greenland. Greenlandic indigenous rights will likely gain prominence in the coming months. Opposition leaders and some community leaders in Greenland are now actively pushing for direct bilateral talks with Trump […]

Greenland is in some ways now a proxy for defining the characteristics of the emerging international order. Alliances and partnerships are subordinate to national interests and traditional ways of business are no more.

In fact, it’s nothing so much as a return to traditional ways before the conceit of globalism took hold in the late 20th century.