Scholars pick apart Trump's aims in Greenland

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CN) — American officials continue to baffle observers and researchers with statements that undermine the work of a high-level diplomatic group established in January with Denmark and Greenland to address U.S. security concerns.

U.S. Special Envoy to Greenland Jeff Landry has said recent high-level talks haven’t accomplished anything for the people of Greenland.

At the Arctic Circle Forum held last week in Rome, U.S. Arctic Research Commission leader Thomas E. Dans reportedly silenced the audience at the conference’s closing event with his defense of the Trump administration’s Greenland policy.

“It was absolutely painful to sit in the audience and listen how the representative of Trump’s administration was justifying its interests in Greenland,” Johanna Ikävalko, director at the Center for Geopolitics, Peace and Security Studies, wrote on LinkedIn.

Greenland is a semiautonomous territory of Denmark, located in the American continent at the Arctic Circle. Greenland’s foreign affairs and security policies are handled by Copenhagen, but Greenlandic officials are now more involved in decisionmaking processes compared to previous years.

Niels Byrjalsen, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, joins a long list of researchers finding it hard to see U.S. President Donald Trump’s talk of acquiring Greenland as a rational endeavor “from a strategic perspective.”

The U.S. already has agreements with Denmark and Greenland allowing Americans to do “pretty much what they want” militarily in the Arctic island, the researcher said in an email to Courthouse News .

Trump has repeatedly said America needs to acquire Greenland for national security purposes. In one effort to achieve this security, he proposed a Golden Dome project, a total defense missile defense that would shield the U.S. from foreign attacks.

Due to Greenland’s strategic location, obstructing the shortest missile path from Russia to Washington, the Arctic island serves a vital role in the Golden Dome project, which still lacks details.

“From my understanding, the project may be a bit unrealistic, and it fits well with Trump’s preference for shiny objects and catchy titles in big projects that may never fully materialize,” wrote Byrjalsen.

But if the project arises, a missile defense system with the magnitude of the Golden Dome project has “strategic implications” due to shifting balances relating to nuclear deterrence and stability between great powers. It could force the hands of Russia and China, according to Byrjalsen.

“It is understandable that states want to protect themselves and their allies from military threats from above, but distortions in the overall balance of power are risky. If the Golden Dome project moves ahead, it is likely that U.S. adversaries like China and Russia will react, potentially in destabilizing ways,” he said.

Additionally, scholars and politicians from Denmark and Greenland have debunked arguments from Trump about Chinese vessels roaming near the Arctic island. Researcher Ulrik Pram Gad of the Danish Institute of International Studies, a specialist in Greenland-Denmark relations, said Trump publicly overrates Greenland’s security role to the U.S.

A high-speed increase in armament of weapons could be read as a threat to Russia, the scholar said, which might end up undermining U.S. security.

“Russia can see it as necessary to react to. That creates a classic security dilemma and a potential arms race that will make the U.S. less secure,” said Gad.

The Trump administration also has interest in Greenland’s natural resources and rare minerals, which the EU considers critical to reducing an overreliance on China. The Asian giant currently holds a dominant position over the world’s reserves.

According to the EU, 25 of 34 “critical raw minerals” used in green technology and the defense industry are found in Greenland.

But the notion of Trump wanting to acquire Greenland because of those resources lacks logic, according to Per Kalvig, a mining geologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. Greenland is already open for business and welcoming American investments, and China’s favorable position in value chains means it would likely process those minerals.

“There’s no guarantee that the minerals will get exclusively absorbed in a European or American supply chain, because it depends on where the companies can get the cheapest offer to sell them for processing to make them usable,” he said.

That’s why China is close to impossible to ignore. Chinese companies have specialized in processing rare minerals and metals to such a degree that worldwide companies in the liberal market often choose the Asian superpower to convert raw materials into usable industrial products for a favorable price.

It would take years for the U.S. and the EU to build an industrial infrastructure that can rival China’s dominance.

“That’s why China has this fantastic position, right? Because they have all the value chains,” said Kalvig.

Another aspect that speaks against the importance of securing Greenlandic resources from rival countries is the composition of Greenland’s rare earth metals, which are hard to convert into the magnet industry compared to resources found in other countries.

U.S. NATO allies Denmark and other European countries have already admitted that security in Greenland and the Arctic region needs a boost. Recently, NATO countries have ramped up their presence in the Arctic islands in the aftermath of Trump’s refusal to rule out a military takeover.

That prospect seems off the table after Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte agreed on a vague framework deal in late January.

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