The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Dr. Klaus Dodds – Professor of Geopolitics and Executive Dean for the School of Life Sciences and Environment at Royal Holloway, and co-author of “Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic” (Yale University Press 2025) – is the 453rd in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
Explain the strategic context of great power competition over Greenland.
The strategic context is informed by local, regional, circumpolar, and global dynamics.
The world’s largest island and the 57,000 people who call it home are not oblivious to why others have coveted it and them, respectively. The island has been part in one form or another of the Kingdom of Denmark for several centuries, and over time its status has changed from colony to overseas territory and finally to being recognized as a highly autonomous part of the realm. The current Prime Minister Múte B. Egede epitomizes a Greenlandic belief that there should be “nothing about us, without us.”
Most Greenlanders aspire to independence from the Danish Kingdom but recognize that Copenhagen provides an annual block grant to the island worth some 500 million euros. Copenhagen has arguably sought to keep external powers at bay through internal financial transfers and a suite of concessions over autonomy and rights for elected governments in Nuuk (following two important referenda that made clear that Greenlandic people wanted to pursue an option for independence).
Since World War II, the United States has been the dominant military and defense partner with Denmark/Greenland. The U.S. established a base in the northwest of the island called Thule (and now Pituffik Space Base), which was designed initially to provide an early response to incoming Soviet bombers and missiles. There was, and is, a keen interest in securing the waters between and beyond the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. Gap. The 1951 defense agreement between NATO partners Denmark and the U.S. provides considerable scope for Washington to ensure that it prevents others from ever establishing a foothold in that part of the North American Arctic. Formally speaking, Denmark retains responsibility for defense and security for Greenland. One noticeable change is that the government of Greenland is very considerably more involved in Danish Arctic policy development.
Finally, Greenland and the Danish Kingdom are nestled in a circumpolar Arctic that has until quite recently enjoyed the benefits of a relative benign geopolitical context. This has clearly worsened following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and a fracturing of intra-Arctic relationships. China is now a great deal more engaged with the Arctic and in recent years has made investment overtures towards Greenland and the wider Nordic Arctic. Greenland finds itself therefore nestled in an Arctic that is being buffeted by great power rivalries and tensions. And the re-election of Donald Trump [as U.S. president] in 2024 has ushered in a return to a more transactional and blunter approach towards allies such as Denmark and Canada.
Examine the rationale behind President Trump’s proposed “purchase” of Greenland.
At least 40 percent of the United States owes its existence to purchasing in one form or another, with the last such purchase being the Danish West Indies [today the U.S. Virgin Islands] in 1917. As the Alaska Purchase demonstrated, courtesy of the then-Russian Empire, it can be thought of as a long-term investment. A hundred years later, the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline was transporting oil from the North Slope of Alaska to the southern port of Valdez. The U.S. has offered in the past to purchase Greenland (as did the U.K.), so again this is not unprecedented. While in each case, those offers were rejected Trump has returned to the topic he first alighted upon in 2019.
The rationale itself is straightforward. Trump thinks that Denmark is a relatively weak NATO ally who has largely benefited from the security umbrella provided by the U.S. since the early 1950s. But now with China working in partnership with Russia there is an added urgency to ensuring that this edge of the North American landmass is properly secured. If Greenlandic people want independence, then that might make them vulnerable to future overtures from China. If the U.S. could “purchase” Greenland or even facilitate a free association agreement, then U.S. investment would follow in a host of areas including infrastructure, mining, and tourism. The proposed “purchase” is therefore a signal that the U.S. will not tolerate a Chinese presence on the island.
Elucidate Washington’s messaging to China as an emerging Arctic power and Russia with its growing militarization of the Arctic region.
In 2019, then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a blunt message at an Arctic Council ministerial meeting in Finland. The timing and location of the speech was telling – the Arctic Council was deliberately set up in 1996 to exclude discussions of defense and security (at the U.S. insistence). Pompeo was scathing about China’s White Paper, which framed the country as a “near-Arctic” state and reinforced the division between Arctic and non-Arctic states. His speech also noted the United States’ determination to counter Chinese influence in Greenland and resist any attempt to reframe the Arctic Ocean as a future South China Sea. During the first Trump administration, both Denmark and the U.S. expressed concerns about Chinese companies and investors seeking to purchase an abandon naval base in the southwest of the island and offers to invest in three international airports. At the time, the Trump administration promised that there would be U.S. investment in airports such as Nuuk to enable improved connections with North America and Europe.
The second Trump administration will continue to be wary of China’s growing military presence in the Arctic region, including joint naval and aerial patrols with Russia in and around the Bering Strait and North Pacific. While Moscow has invested heavily in re-militarization of its vast Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation, Chinese companies and investment play a vital role in facilitating energy projects and commercial shipping along the Northern Sea Route. China will need to be careful not to provoke Russian fears about covert expansionism. And the U.S., under Trump, has recognized that the U.S. must develop a larger icebreaking fleet and improve homeland missile/drone defense capabilities, as it seeks to ensure northern hemispheric security.
Analyze Copenhagen’s strategic calculus in negotiating a deal with Washington that benefits Denmark and Greenland.
Denmark is painfully aware that it is a small Nordic state that has needed to spend more on defense for years. In January 2025, the Danish government confirmed a $2 billion boost to its Arctic Command in Nuuk. Even before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, political leaders in both Denmark and Greenland were meeting to discuss Arctic security in the Kingdom. But even with a fresh commitment to a more long-term injection of funding for defense and security, Denmark will only reach 2 percent of GDP by 2030. Denmark spent 1.65 percent of its GDP on defense in 2023 compared to other NATO countries such as Poland managing 3 percent.
All of which is to say that Trump’s overtures towards Greenland are partially informed by a clear understanding that Denmark has been underinvesting for a long time and that Greenland could be considered a security blind spot. Copenhagen knows that if it wishes to rebuff Trump’s offer for the second time regarding a “purchase,” it has been put on notice about how it ensures the security of the island.
Denmark might wish to remind the U.S. that the 1951 Defense Agreement still allows Washington considerable flexibility to pursue hemispheric security objectives. It is very unlikely that either Nuuk or Copenhagen would resist any U.S. request to expand its military presence, especially as there is a shared concern about Russia and China in the Arctic region and beyond.
Assess how the U.S. could advance hemispheric security through the acquisition of Greenland vis-à-vis great power competition.
There are several ways of making sense of Trump’s proposal to “purchase” Greenland. One is simply that he wishes to be immortalized in American history as the man who expanded the U.S. by 2.1 million square kilometers. That would be approximately the same size as the Louisiana Purchase and larger than Alaska. The second is that he and his advisers genuinely believe that Denmark is too weak to ensure the long-term security of Greenland, and that the U.S. must step in and make it the 51st state (or 52nd if Canada was to be incorporated as well, as Trump has repeatedly suggested). The third reason might be that, as with Ukraine, Trump and his team are interested in the island’s rare earth potential, and part of ensuring hemispheric security is making sure the U.S. has secure access to vital resources. Finally, hemispheric security depends on safe and secure shipping lanes and if the Panama Canal proves unreliable (through drought/climate change or a possible Chinese take-over of the zone) then the waters north of the North American landmass must be protected.
If nothing else, the resurrection of the Greenland “deal” will no doubt put further pressure on Denmark and other Nordic countries to ensure that they are ready to shoulder more responsibility for European security. Trump’s highly transactional style might end up producing benefits for the Greenlandic population – the U.S. president has given the island an extraordinary boost in attention and publicity. The Greenlandic prime minister will be eager to ensure that the island can benefit financially and politically from this interest. To develop Greenland’s rare earth potential will require a great deal of foreign investment of both money and skilled labor. Greenland might sense that there is a “deal” to be done, but not quite the one President Trump envisages.
