It’s Obvious Why Trump Actually Wants Greenland

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President-elect Donald Trump wants to acquire Greenland. This is not merely one of his japes, as it may have been during his first term. Great-power territorial acquisition is on his dream list for his second term. And while the annexation of Canada as the “51st state,” as he often posts, may be more in the messing-around category, he’s speaking quite seriously about seizing Greenland. The Danish crown is paying attention.

“In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance,” the Wall Street Journal first reported in 2019. It seemed, as with so many things during his first term, that it was something staff promised to “look into” while assuming that Trump would forget and move on to something else.

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Trump, however, has not forgotten, and he will spend much more of his second term trying to execute his most fanciful plans than his first. In Trump’s announcement of his nominee to serve as ambassador to Denmark, Ken Howery, he emphasized that “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.” Kenny, you have your orders.

Greenland, with a population of around 50,000, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, a kingdom with which Greenland has a history going back more than a millennium. Greenland manages its internal affairs, while national security is delegated to Denmark. While Greenland isn’t particularly enraptured with Denmark anymore, that doesn’t mean it’s ready to leap into the hands of America. Greenland’s prime minister, in response to Trump’s latest chatter about acquisition, has emphasized that the island is not for sale.

Denmark, meanwhile, is getting saucy in the face of Trump’s expansionist threats. King Frederik, who took the throne from his mom a year ago, just released an updated royal coat of arms—and hoo boy. The updated one more prominently displays symbols of the Danish realm’s overseas territories, portraying a significantly larger polar bear, representing Greenland, and ram, representing the Faroe Islands. A more realistic updated coat of arms would feature the logo of Novo Nordisk. But as the king wishes, so the royal drawers-of-pictures obey.

Trump saw King Frederik’s upsized polar bear and raised him a Don Jr. Greenland excursion. The president-elect’s son landed in Nuuk on Tuesday, in the Trump-branded plane, on an unofficial trip. The purpose, per the AP, was “to shoot video content for podcasting,” in line with the industry trend of people watching videos of audio shows. While in Nuuk, Don Jr.’s father called in to speak to an assembled group.

(We don’t know, based on this clip, whether the people of Greenland were really “LOVING” it so much as they were bewildered by what was happening. It is true, though, that they clap when Charlie Kirk, who was also there presumably for content purposes, urges them to do so.)

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During a press conference on Tuesday, meanwhile, Trump laid out his vision for acquiring Greenland. He threatened “very high tariffs” on Denmark if it refused to consider selling Greenland and refused to rule out economic or military coercion in his effort to take over Greenland. (He refused to rule out the same for his other pet project, retaking the Panama Canal.) He also suggested that Denmark might not really have control over Greenland, anyway.

It’s important to note that Trump is not the first American official to come up with the idea of annexing Greenland, and he is correct that the island is of significant strategic importance. With the Arctic melting—who knows why!—new sea lanes are opening, and Russia and China have been working to plant their flags. The island has vast natural resources, including valuable rare-earth mineral deposits. And were Greenland to achieve full independence, it would inevitably fall under some great power’s security umbrella. The U.S. already has a military base on the island, as it is. None of this means, however, that the U.S. needs to annex Greenland to strategic purposes. It could simply negotiate a treaty or some other diplomatic agreement for enhanced cooperation. That may be what Trump’s saber-rattling, in the end, is all about.

More likely, though, he just wants it because it would be cool. And as much as he makes the national security arguments … well, we’ve all studied this guy’s brain for a decade now. We think we know why he’s really interested in it.

It’s because Greenland looks really, really big on the Mercator projection.

Greenland is not small. We would never disrespect Greenland by calling it small. But it’s not as big as it looks, flattened out, on the Mercator projection. It is not roughly the same size as Africa. It is my belief, however, that Trump does not know this and believes that it is the size of Africa, which makes him fixated on it enough to threaten war—trade war or shooting war—with a NATO ally over its control.

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The same applies to Canada, which Trump also says he wants, and which also appears enormous on the Mercator projection.

Trump has not indicated what his plans for governance would be of any of the territories he hopes to capture.

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