Trump, a man with known affinity for ocean-front property, has asked the White House counsel to “look into [the United States] buying Greenland.” Before anyone begins instinctively lashing out at Trump’s recklessness in pursuing a stupid deal, let’s stand back and evaluate this for a second, and then I might offer-up an argument that this could be a move worthy of consideration.
As you know, Denmark owns and manages Greenland as a territory. According to the linked article from Huffington Post, the Danes have been running a significant deficit supporting their interest in the island. Some in the American government – with varying levels of seriousness – have proposed buying it as an American territory.
As in any real estate deal, the measure becomes “what are you buying?” and “is one getting good value for the investment.” Given all the unknowns about Greenland, and all the questions left unanswered, the “details” could not matter more.
It’s not clear what about Greenland has supposedly sparked Trump’s curiosity. The island may be a rich source of rare mineral and energy sources, including iron ore, lead, zinc, diamonds, gold, uranium and oil, though experts say more research needs to be done to know the island’s full potential.Â
Pay attention to that word “potential,” because I think that is the operative word here.
What is the underlying motivation for purchasing it? Because that is where we most surely would run into differences with Trump’s ambitions.
If the idea is to allow Chevron and Exxon-Mobile to pound the ever-living-shit out of Greenland in search of more oil, the deal is most dangerous if Greenland is floating on oil. However, if Greenland is sitting on much of anything of real value, then I think it is best that the United States own the land, not because we need to pillage yet another landscape, but because we would want to control access to anyone else wanting to pillage it for treasure.
If somehow the Danes happened to be looking around for a buyer – which they currently are not doing, but could someday – I would vastly prefer it to be the United States, and not Vladimir Putin, nor Saudi Arabia, Iran, or just about anyone with a ton of cash and questionable motives.
I would want Greenland to represent the beginning of a “Green New Deal,” and its role being that of a protectorate, a wilderness available for study, with a gigantic “Keep Out” sign, applied to everyone but locals and a select few.
Furthermore, we know that even if we shut off all our man-made Greenhouse gas emissions today, the planet would continue to warm until at least 2100. And nowhere is it warming faster than the Arctic, including Greenland. With the ice-melt continuing, and a moderating climate, Greenland will continue to attract attention. True, there are few nations as trustworthy as Denmark (in fact, right now I suspect they are more trustworthy than the United States in sad ways). However, if social pressures in Denmark ever reach a point where they are looking for assistance with the island, it needs to be a United States territory, and not a Russian or Petro-state territory.
Last, there are inevitable military-defense issues. We already do have a presence on the island, Thule Air Force Base is the military’s northernmost base. In a warming world, we can expect a true “Northwest Passage” to emerge. That means there will be increased shipping back and forth across the Arctic Ocean, at least during the summer months. We already know there to be continued oil exploration in the Arctic continental shelf. It may damn well be a good idea to have a significant naval base in the far north. Indeed, I read at some point that the United States and Canadian military were looking at the possibility of opening a joint “open-water” naval base in the far north, the naval equivalent to NORAD, which itself is a joint endeavor between the two nations.
We also know that Putin does assert Russian ownership of the Arctic continental shelf. There will be a point in time when Trump is no longer president, and Russia’s aggressive, anti-NATO, acts will – again – be seen as a problem, not a blessing. At that point, solid U.S. interests in the Arctic continental shelf from both the Pacific and Atlantic confluence makes sense.
All of this presupposes that the United States’ greatest interest in Greenland is ensuring that no power works to increase the ice-melt to an even greater degree than that which we already see. There is no point in “buying Greenland” if the cost is “Florida and Louisiana.”
The idea sounds laughable, and it probably is, since Denmark doesn’t seem interested in selling. But, should the world hear of Trump’s interests, it could create a market that Denmark cannot resist entertaining. So long as Trump promises with all his heart to not engrave a fifty-mile long, gold painted, “Trump Land” in the continental shelf, I think the initiative is one of his few that I could support. Of course, I do not trust any “Trump promise” but that can be handled down the road.
The idea may have some merit, laughable as it might first seem.
However, thinking that Trump could negotiate a great real estate deal for ocean-front property really is probably a joke. Of course, these deals historically take a long time to complete, it would likely be anywhere from two to five years before actual ownership could be transferred, at a minimum …
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Peace, y’all.
Jason
Great points Jason! OMG we couldn’t let him “buy” Greenland could we? He’d run it to the ground like every other business venture he’s been involved in, don’t you think? He’s is such an orange steaming pile of disaster.
That is why starting it now, which would require getting Denmark’s interest, and then an act of Congress to appropriate the money, and then an international treaty to finalize it, would all take years. So, I am not prohibitively against it just bc it is a Trump idea. I TRUST that he won’t be running it.
After Trump is gone, I fully expect a revival of a sentiment I heard a lot from the world last century: “Yankee, go home.” The damage this man has done to our standing makes hanging onto all those bases worldwide even more tenuous, never mind getting something as unmanageable as Greenland.
Actually, it would require approval by the Greenlandic Parliament as well. Greenland is a constituent part of the Kingdom of Denmark as can’t simply be “sold off to the highest bidder” by the government in Copenhagen. It’s a fairly complex situation but it’s similar to the situation of Scotland (and Wales, to a lesser degree) in the UK. The “Kingdom of Denmark” includes not only the COUNTRY of Denmark (which is also, officially, the “Kingdom of Denmark”) but also Greenland and the Faeroe Islands but Greenland is able to conduct some business for itself (for instance, it became a part of the EU when Denmark joined in 1973 but officially left the EU in 1985, 6 years after attaining home rule; however, it still has a seat in the EU Parliament and the people of Greenland have the right to travel through the EU without need for any extra paperwork).
I thank you deeply for the fantastic contribution. In all the articles I read this morning, not a single one mentioned that the Graenlandians would also need to approve such a deal – though they might, depending on what they got out of the deal, some cash would need be involved, perhaps quite a bit. There are no more that 50,000 people total there. But, I had no idea, and I truly doubt it will get done anyway. I was looking more at the concept than it actually occurring. The world has no reason to trust the US right now, though a new president, a new congress, fair terms and a shared interest might be something that could increase trust in people. Who knows? I know Trump can’t do it alone, thank god.
The world is not going to start trusting the US as quickly as an administration change. Why should anyone trust a country with the system set up to elect people like Trump and the Republicans? Anywhere else in the world, parties with policies like theirs are deservedly on the extreme fringe right wing, so far out of the mainstream that they’re irrelevent, not crashing the world’s economy, climate, and environment.
This is not an idea that originated with Trump. It goes at least as far back as the Andrew Johnson administration in 1867 when his State Department suggested it. Harry Truman’s administration actually offered $100 million dollars for it.
Essentially it boils down to geopolitics. Our defense presence on the island is a major factor in “providing for the common defense”(Yep, it’s in the Constitution). It’s also to preempt other countries, in particular China, who wanted to finance and build airstrips on Greenland from establishing a foothold there.
I supported Trump’s idea, even though I don’t think he can get it done, I said it was worth looking at. I know it didn’t originate with him but I gave him credit for moving on the idea.