In recent days, US President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly proposed expanding the United States, including the acquisition of the Danish autonomous region of Greenland. While officials in Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly denied that the island will be sold, Mr. Trump’s move has undoubtedly once again drawn global attention to the frozen island.
In a post announcing the nomination of Ken Howe, a well-known tech entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal and the Founders Fund, to be U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Trump used so-called “national security” as an excuse to claim that “U.S. ownership and control of Greenland is absolutely necessary.”
In fact, Trump is not the first US president to spend money on Greenland, and he probably won’t be the last.
Where is Greenland?
As the largest island on Earth, Greenland is located in the northeast of Canada and is about three times the size of Texas in the United States, but because most of the area is covered in snow and ice all year round, the population is only about 57,000 people. Although geographically closer to North America, it has traditionally been considered a European region.
For more than 200 years, Greenland has been a self-governing territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, and the internal affairs of Greenland are now managed by the Greenland Home Rule Government, while foreign affairs and defence issues are left to Denmark. Residents of Greenland are Danish citizens and have two seats in the Danish Parliament.
In response to Trump’s thoughts, Greenland’s self-governing prime minister, Mutter Egerd, reiterated on Monday that Greenland is “not for sale” and will never be sold.
Why did Trump want to buy Greenland?
For the United States, Greenland is located in a triple attraction of military, resources and (future) trade.
The US Space Force has disclosed that the US military has set up the Pitufik Space Base on Greenland, which has been a strategic base for missile defense and space surveillance missions since its establishment during the Cold War.
At the same time, according to the research report of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Greenland not only covers a huge area, but also has rich reserves of various resources, in addition to oil, there are also rare earth minerals such as neodymium and terbium.
Finally, there is the more important “Arctic shipping lane”. As the planet warms, the reduction of the ice-covered area of the Arctic also brings new variables to the future of global trade – the future of Asia-Europe trade does not necessarily need to go through the Suez Canal, but can cross the Arctic Ocean directly through the Bering Strait, no matter which route is taken, the vast island of Greenland is an unavoidable stop.
Scientists predict that the “Arctic shipping lane” could reach a state of “free navigation for any light icebreaker” by the middle of the century. Of course, due to insufficient infrastructure and disputes over territorial waters, there is still great uncertainty about this route.
Trump is not the first
Spending money on territorial expansion is nothing new for the United States. In 1803, the United States bought 530 million acres of North American land from France for $15 million, and in 1867, it bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million.