What Greenlanders might want from a deal with Trump
January 13, 2025
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Ian Bremmer, political scientist and president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, shares insights on global political events.
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Let's talk about Greenland. First time I ever encountered it was when I was playing Risk in school, and it was this big island between North America and Europe that connected you with Iceland. But it was part of North America, at least on the Risk map, and that's how you got your five armies if you owned the whole thing. So you always threw a couple up there, a lot of big, big territory. And now we're visiting, and Donald Trump Jr. taking Air Trump One last week and landing in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. Landed for a few hours, did some social media stuff, and then got back to Mar-a-Lago, where he's probably more comfortable. What's happening? Why do the Americans say that they are going to buy it, incoming President Trump, and what does it mean for American alliances and the future of the global order and all of that?
Well, first, let's recognize that as much as it sounds crazy, Trump is not the first president to offer to buy Greenland. He's actually the third. The first was Andrew Johnson. His Secretary of State, William Seward, who was down for Alaska, also offered 5.5 million to buy Greenland. This was back in 1868. The timing is interesting, of course. There's no historic claim on Greenland. The US troops did briefly occupy it in World War II for defensive purposes, but it's not as if the United States has any reason to believe that this should be American. It's not like, say, what the Russians say about Crimea.
And the Greenlandic government, which is itself, it represents all of 55,000 people, despite the size, is led by a separatist political party. They want independence. Independence is popular in Greenland. They've had a few polls, and people generally say that they'd like to be Greenlanders and not part of Denmark. And they are clearly leveraging all of this spotlight from Trump to advance having an independence referendum during parliamentary elections coming up real soon, like in April. And frankly, given that Denmark is a tiny country and spends about $500 million a year on Greenland, that if the Americans came over the top and said, "Well, we'd make you an ally. We'd put troops on the ground and we'd pay you more, not taking it over, Greenland would be an independent state." I think it would be much more likely that Greenland would actually vote for independence. And then, Trump would say, "We've got a new ally, and we've got everything we wanted. And we have these basing rights for the Arctic," and all of that.
It's pretty significant in terms of talking about the Nordics. Denmark has had Greenland as part of its territory since 1830. And Greenland is autonomous, they have their own parliament, which means they are right now in charge of their own domestic affairs, but not foreign or security affairs. So in that regard, also much like Crimea under Ukraine. But they have moved more towards an independence movement over the past decades. In part, self-determination is what people generally are aiming for around the world, with better understanding of others, post-colonial, being able to achieve it for themselves. Also, because there's a difficult history with Denmark. A lot of forced integration, taking Greenlanders from their homes, from their families, to put them in Danish schools and make them more Danish. Even forced birth control to reduce the Greenland explosion of population. Those things are not happening now, but that is a history that was exploitative and makes a lot of Greenlanders feel about the Danes the way that a lot of Native Americans feel about the United States. So, it's understandable why there would be an independence movement.
Now, the Danes, in addition to all the European leaders, are squashing any idea that Greenland is for sale, but that is very different from Greenland might well go independent. And there's no question that Greenland is important, particularly in terms of national security. Russia has put billions of dollars into Arctic infrastructure, including its Northern Fleet, and they're the only country in the world that's really actively trying to seize the Arctic's economic and strategic potential. That's going to become much more important as the ice cap melts, with transit routes, with exploitation of resources. The United States did have some troops on the ground, a meaningful number, in Greenland, something like 10,000. It's now down to 200. They've reduced that. They could certainly expand it with a new relationship with an independent Greenland.
Of course, they could also expand it with a new relationship with Denmark, of which Greenland is a part, Trump not all that interested in that because it doesn't make spectacular headlines, and also because he likes real estate. Let's face it, you look at him personally, and he loves putting his names on pieces of property that are iconic and that have a large visual footprint in the minds of people. And historically, he almost lost his economic empire a few times by holding on to iconic real estate for too long. So is that a factor in how Trump thinks about Greenland? You'd have to imagine it plays a role. So I think we are going to be talking about this actually a lot more over the coming months, and it's going to have a lot more to do with what 55,000 Greenlanders decide to vote for. And then how the Americans negotiate with them.
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