President Donald Trump may or may not be able to bring Greenland under American control, but he does have options in the wake of geopolitical currents transforming Arctic statecraft.
Greenland’s prime minister announced on Tuesday that the semi-autonomous Danish territory will hold a snap election on March 11 as Trump considers avenues to annex the island. In light of the White House’s renewed acquisition interest, the top issue to be considered is likely Greenland’s status as an independent state.
“We are in the midst of a serious time. A time that we have never experienced in our country,” Prime Minister Mute Egede wrote in a social media post reported by Reuters. “This is not the time for internal division.”
Trump reignited a more than 150-year-old interest in the island just weeks before his second inauguration. In December, the president-elect began to preview a 21st-century form of the Monroe Doctrine with a newfound focus on American influence throughout the Western Hemisphere.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” Trump wrote in his announcement of his ambassador to Denmark.
Greenland not only remains at the nexus of Arctic transportation but also hosts a trove of critical minerals that are key to competing in the next phase of the industrial revolution. The president, however, faces significant obstacles to his plans, including Copenhagen’s opposition to his taking control of an island that is seemingly more interested in total independence than rule by a foreign power.
The island’s population of roughly 55,000 last voted on related measures in 2008, when 75 percent approved a self-government referendum claiming a higher level of autonomy just shy of complete independence. Greenlanders voted to declare themselves a distinct people and recognized Greenlandic as the official language instead of Danish. The local population also took control of their own law enforcement, legal system, and coast guard in addition to a greater share of the island’s oil revenues.
In February of last year, Greenland’s government formally declared full independence was the ultimate goal in the nation’s Foreign, Security and Defense Policy 2024-2033. Alexander Gray, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council and former chief of staff of the National Security Council under Trump, outlined in The Wall Street Journal last November why an independent Greenland represents a “grave concern” for U.S. security given the island’s inability to protect the region by itself.
“Russia and China are threatening the status quo in the Arctic,” Gray wrote.
Moscow has claimed significant chunks of the Arctic Sea, including inside Greenland’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Russian survey ships have encroached on Greenland’s waters, and Russia is expanding its Arctic bases and formidable icebreaker fleet. China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” established a shipping network called the “Polar Silk Road” to bind Arctic communities closer to Beijing’s economic and political agenda, and built its own fleet of icebreakers.
The Chinese, meanwhile, have a well-established history of imposing Beijing’s influence on vulnerable regions of critical interest. In an interview with The Federalist, Gray characterized Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland as “a real security threat we have to respond to.”
“Greenland has always been a potential threat to North America if a foreign adversary occupies it,” Gray said, with the Chinese and the Russians both eager to implement a de facto takeover of one of the world’s least densely populated islands. Gray thinks Greenland’s separation from Denmark, however, is inevitable. It is not just a question of “when,” but of “what’s waiting for the Greenlanders on the other end.”
“Who do you want waiting for the Greenlanders,” he said, “Washington, Moscow, or Beijing?”
Gray recommended in The Wall Street Journal weeks after the November election that Trump “buy” the island, but the Danes have vehemently rejected the idea that Greenland is for sale. In January, the Financial Times reported on a “fiery” phone call between Trump and Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. The nearly hour-long phone call came after Greenland’s leader signaled a willingness to negotiate with the Republican White House.
“Five current and former senior European officials briefed on the call said the conversation had gone very badly,” the Times said. “They added that Trump had been aggressive and confrontational following the Danish prime minister’s comments that the island was not for sale, despite her offer of more co-operation on military bases and mineral exploitation.”
The Danish government announced a more than $2 billion increase in Arctic defense spending roughly two weeks later. Gray, however, stressed additional security commitments from Denmark were not enough to guarantee America’s long-term security.
“This is a more fundamental interest,” he said, leaving the president with another option beyond territorial acquisition and statehood. The former brings the risk of additional debt while the latter threatens to open a Pandora’s box when it comes to the status of other districts and territories that could theoretically become states, such as Guam, Washington, D.C., and American Samoa. A poll of Greenlanders also found in January that just 6 percent supported the island becoming American, though researchers surveyed less than 500 citizens, and polls are not elections. But if the Danes don’t want to sell Greenland and the locals don’t want to form the 51st state, President Trump can pursue an agreement called a Compact of Free Association (COFA).
Managed by the Department of the Interior, a COFA is a mutual agreement with select territories that are guaranteed U.S. support and protection in exchange for exclusive regional access. Under these compacts, co-opted states receive limited economic assistance and allow the American military to maintain an exclusive security presence without the host territory’s forfeiture of national sovereignty. A COFA signed with Greenland would give the U.S. rights to manage regional security while the island maintains relative autonomy from both the United States and Denmark.
The U.S. currently has COFA agreements with a trio of Pacific nation-states. The U.S. provides military defense in exchange for military access, immigration privileges, and financial aid. COFA agreements govern the U.S. relationship with the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and the Republic of Palau. The security arrangements give the Pentagon greater ability to counter Chinese aggression in the Pacific just as a compact with Greenland would provide an additional buffer in the Arctic.
“I would call it kind of the intermediary option,” Gray said, as Trump makes clear any shift in Greenland’s relationship with Denmark will be within America’s long-term national security interest.
“I think the people want to be with us,” Trump told reporters last month after his explosive phone call with the Danish prime minister. “I don’t really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn’t allow that to happen because it’s for the protection of the free world.”
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