what’s at stake
President-elect Donald Trump has openly talked in recent days about bringing Greenland under US control, refusing to rule out military or economic force to achieve that aim. His comments have touched off a global debate, with European politicians warning Trump against threatening the sovereignty of an autonomous Danish territory.
Greenland occupies a strategically important position for the US, hosting a military base and providing critical minerals. Critics of Trump’s interest in greater control over Greenland warn of destabilizing the US alliance with Denmark for an unnecessary and costly plan. Trump allies make the national security case for countering China and Russia via a bigger US role in Greenland, whether it’s full acquisition or a free association pact.
Semafor spoke with two experts on either side of the question. Their responses are lightly edited for length and clarity.
who’s making the case
Alex Gray, a former National Security Council chief of staff under Donald Trump and a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, argues that the US should pursue greater control of Greenland:
“It’s a very historically well-supported argument. And you really have to go back to how, in the 19th century and through the 20th century, before we became absorbed in Middle Eastern and Eastern European conflicts, how the United States conceived of its core national interests. In the early republic, going to the Civil War and up to World War II, we viewed this concept of hemispheric defense guarding the Western Hemisphere on its eastern and western borders and from the Arctic to the Antarctic, Caribbean, Latin America, South America.
“Those are our core national interests, and presidents of both parties pursued them. That was just obvious — that wasn’t something that was controversial, that wasn’t ideological. And over time, as we became a superpower, we felt that we had further afield concerns and we felt secure in our hemisphere. But [if] you look traditionally, Greenland was seen as the outer extreme of the hemisphere. And if a foreign adversary were able to get a foothold in Greenland, it would threaten the United States.”
“[Trump] is saying purchase Greenland, so I think we all need to take that seriously and I think that the US administration needs to be working on options to facilitate a negotiation for him to do that. … If ultimately the president decides he doesn’t want to do an outright purchase, there’s something like a compact of free association, where we would be able to — the Greenlanders, when they ultimately get independence from Denmark, which they say they want, and we should take them at their word — they will be able to have under a compact like the three Pacific islands have compacts. They would be able to maintain their independence and their sovereignty, but the United States would provide for their defense. The argument for a compact is, we would ensure that their sovereignty was protected.”
Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, argues that pursuing Greenland would put greater economic burden on the US without any real benefit:
“Free association would be a really good idea if Greenland was on the verge of becoming independent. And the thing is, Greenland is not on the verge of becoming independent. It’s wholly dependent on Danish support, both economically and administrative support. Therefore, Greenland will only become an independent state if the US steps in and basically replaces Denmark as the main supporter of Greenland. And it’s really important to understand that the US is basically already getting what it wants out of Greenland. It’s having its cake and eating it too, to some extent, because it gets all of its interests, while at the same time it doesn’t have to pay the bill. So that’s kind of a perfect situation for the United States.”
“The US wants to get access to Greenland’s military geographic, especially the Pituffik Space Base in northern Greenland, and the US can already get that today because the existing agreement already gives the US wide access to Greenland and if the US ever were to require additional access, Denmark and Greenland are very interested in further cooperation and would probably be satisfied with getting very small incentives to do so.”
“The US wants to get access to the minerals in Greenland and here the key thing is that US companies can already mine the minerals in Greenland today, so it wouldn’t really change anything if the US were to have free association.”
“The US wants to prevent China from getting access to Greenland, but China hasn’t really shown any interest in Greenland over the past five years, since 2019. And at the same time, actually, China prefers to focus on the Russian Arctic right now where the war in Ukraine gives it a lot of advantages to get a foothold in that part of the region.”