Madness.
That’s the only way to describe President Trump’s obsession with seizing Greenland by whatever means necessary and no matter the cost. It’s a preoccupation that’s untethered from reality and lacks any rational justification.
Indeed, the shifting rationales offered by the Trump administration for this fixation do not add up and make zero sense.
Take the supposed national security justification for the annexation of Greenland: It’s impossible to say what the United States might gain from such a move because the United States would not gain anything from it. The U.S. military already possesses extensive access to Greenland thanks to the 1951 agreement between Washington and Copenhagen, and the Space Force maintains a base at Pituffik in the territory’s far north that helps monitor for ballistic missile attacks. Moreover, America is already committed to defending Greenland against aggression via Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty. Per that provision — invoked only once in response to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the United States — an armed attack on Greenland, an autonomous and self-governing territory under Danish sovereignty, would be considered an attack on the United States itself. What’s more, the Danish government has already made crystal clear its willingness to discuss even deeper security cooperation with the United States in Greenland.
Put bluntly, there is no national security reason for the United States to annex or otherwise assume direct control over Greenland. Even if they could somehow mount a military expedition to Greenland, China and Russia could not “take over” the island without triggering Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty and provoking an American-led military response. It makes absolutely no sense for the U.S. government to idly contemplate destroying the alliance that obliges the United States to come to Greenland’s defense and tearing up a decades-old security agreement that gives the U.S. military wide-ranging access to the island in order to acquire Greenland itself, supposedly for national security purposes.
The mooted economic rationale for acquiring Greenland makes just as little sense. It’s true that Greenland possesses significant reserves of rare earth elements and other critical minerals, but it’s nowhere near the motherlode the Trump administration claims: indeed, the island’s rare earth reserves rank just below those of the United States itself. If American mining companies aren’t operating in Greenland, it’s due to a lack of interest rather than a lack of access: it’s almost certainly cost-prohibitive to mine these minerals given the ice sheet that covers the island, the remoteness of the deposits, and the near-total absence of necessary mining infrastructure. In short, it will take a long time and cost a lot of money to extract these minerals — and there are much easier prospects elsewhere.
Concern about possible Chinese attempts to corner the market for these resources does not justify an American attempt to seize Greenland itself. Such worries ought to motivate the United States to work more closely with Greenland’s own democratic government, Denmark, NATO, and the European Union to both bar Chinese investment in Greenland’s critical minerals and infrastructure, and more importantly, to invest more themselves in Greenland. (Canada and the United Kingdom hold 23 mining licenses each, the most of any one country.) Again, it makes no sense to destroy these relationships in the pursuit of presidential fantasies of territorial expansion.
So why does Trump appear dead-set on annexing Greenland, strategic and economic costs to the United States — to say nothing of America’s allies and the rest of the world — be damned?
Trump’s own ego and personal vanity appear to be a major factor, with the president telling New York Times reporters that ownership of Greenland is what he feels “is psychologically needed for success.” Annexing Greenland, in other words, will make Trump feel like a big man. He also seems to find Greenland a tempting target because — and I wish I were kidding — it looks “massive” on Mercator map projections that exaggerate the size of landmasses near the poles.
More ominously, though, Trump’s drive to take Greenland any way he can is a logical outgrowth of his gangster-style approach to the world — and in particular his apparent desire to carve the globe up with his idol Vladimir Putin and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping. Echoing Putin’s nauseating pre-war assertions that Ukraine should “bear with” the Kremlin’s brutal impending invasion, “whether you like it or don’t like it,” Trump has vowed to “do something on Greenland whether they like it or not.”
Congress has options to stop the madness, or at least make it more onerous for the Trump administration to try and make its twisted fantasies of territorial aggrandizement real.
First, Congress can preemptively deny Trump authority to use force or subversion against Greenland. Such a move would absolutely clear that any orders Trump may give to attack, subvert, or otherwise undermine Danish sovereignty over Greenland and Greenland’s own democratic institutions would be prima facie illegal and subject to refusal by responsible military officers and intelligence officials. It would also send a signal to Denmark and other NATO allies that Congress does not approve of Trump’s ambition to seize Greenland and that it lacks democratic legitimacy in the United States itself.
Congress can also explicitly bar the use of any funds to purchase Greenland or engage in any activities meant to subvert or otherwise undermine Danish sovereignty over the island. Last year, President Trump ordered the intelligence community to increase its spying on Greenland, and the Trump administration has reportedly considered sending Greenland residents cash payments of up to $100,000 if they support secession from Denmark and annexation by the United States — efforts that would not be eligible for funding under a Congressional funding band. Again, this move would be as much about sending signals to NATO allies and giving national security professionals strong grounds to refuse illegal orders as anything else.
Senators and representatives can also travel to Greenland, Denmark, and NATO headquarters in Brussels to show solidarity with these nations and the alliance as a whole. Indeed, a nine-member delegation led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and including Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has already left for Copenhagen to, in Coons’ words, let the Danish government know “we understand the value of the partnership we have long had with them, and in no way seek to interfere in their internal discussions about the status of Greenland.” Once again, such visits would serve notice that Trump’s proposed aggression against Greenland lacks both support and legitimacy in Congress and the United States. Or as Coons put it, “I just think it’s important for us to be heard as strongly supporting NATO and our alliance.”
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it offers Congress a place to start if we hope to stop this insanity before it proceeds any further.
