Why Is Trump Melting Down About Icy Greenland?

I have to admit, in all my years on this Earth I have given Greenland little consideration. In fact, if it hadn’t been for all those outraged cartographers using it as Exhibit A of how the Mercator Projection world map distorts country size, I would’ve forgotten it even existed.

The largest island in the world, ‘Greenland’ also has the most misleading name as it is 80% covered in ice – up to 3km deep in places. Despite being of similar physical size as Saudi Arabia, it only has a total population of 56,000, around the same as Whanganui! This makes Greenland one of the least populated countries on Earth – not surprising really when most of the island boasts a toasty high of -12°C in summer(!) and can dip down to -50°C in winter.

Such temperatures are Nature’s way of saying; ‘Go away! Stay away!’ yet people have refused to take the hint and stuck around in Greenland for at least 4500 years. Apparently, just to gnaw on frozen fish and huddle over seal blubber fires…

Who runs it?

With such a small population Greenland can only do so much themselves in today’s world, so they rely on former colonial masters the Kingdom of Denmark for the rest. In a relationship similar to the one the Cook Islands have with New Zealand, Greenland is largely self-governing but relies on the bigger country for things like currency, foreign policy, defence and financial assistance.

Enter Trump

All in all, Greenland is a backwater so obscure it makes Norfolk Island look like Tokyo in comparison. Yet it has certainly caught the eye of the new U.S. President. Enough that he took time out in his first week back in the White House from firing Biden employees, withdrawing from the TPP, WHO and Paris Climate Agreements and frogmarching Latin Americans back across the Border – to suddenly threaten the Danish PM with tariffs for not selling him Greenland.
Say what?! So why does the Tangerine Tyrant want it so bad? Let’s look at the possibilities:

For the giggles

Politics and comedy don’t usually overlap – but then again Donald Trump is a total norm-breaker. He’s created an Orange Ratio where the less competent the U.S. government appears on the world stage, the funnier he seems at the podium.

During his first term it was genuinely scary knowing an impetuous, narcissistic fool like him had his finger hovering over the nuclear button. But two recent events have exposed the American government for the blustering blowhards they are: The 12-hour TikTok ‘ban’ and launch of the open-source Chinese DeepSeek AI language assistant have demonstrated U.S. politicians serve one purpose only – to assist the mega wealthy in gaining yet greater control.

With this in mind, we can see Trump for what he is too, a standup comedian. How else can you describe someone who claims he is the ‘father of IVF’ and that January 6 was a ‘day of love’? Then there is his absolutely laugh out loud demand that the United States should be given Greenland as it is a necessity for the ‘Free World’. Given his unsubtle plans for his own country and attitude toward fellow so-called ‘Free World’ allies such as Canada (for goodness’ sake!) this is Monty Python level farce.
Kevin Hart and Nate Bargatze better watch out – there’s a new kid in town, and he’s drawing ‘the biggest crowds the world has ever seen.’

He’s concerned about the Inuit

Around 90% of Greenland’s population are Inuit – or Kalaallit as they refer to themselves. Maybe kind old uncle Donald Trump is concerned they are getting a raw deal from the Danes – who do have a dubious history of trying to Daneify the locals…

Nah, even Don Junior would struggle to argue this case! Trump only cares about himself, his mega-rich cronies, his family and redneck white Americans – in that order and exclusively. As far as he’s concerned, everyone else was put on this Earth just for him to mock, belittle and/or deport.

If he really wanted to protect the Inuit, he’d support a push for full independence from Denmark, not try to step in as their new coloniser.

He wants the minerals

Now we’re talking! This is a quite feasible reason as Greenland is a treasure trove of rare earth minerals such as lithium, niobium, and zirconium that people such as – say, Trump’s best mate Elon Musk for example – would be very keen to get his hands on. To make zillions of dollars – er, I mean help the world out by promoting green technology. Of course, the Americans aren’t the only ones who want the minerals; everybody else does too including the U.S.’s current favourite boogeyman China, who already dominate the mining and refinement of the sector – but certainly wouldn’t be averse to protecting their lion’s share of the market by cornering Greenland’s offering too.

But are the minerals up for grabs at all? Well, you can never say never when it comes to greed but both the Greenlanders and Danes have said no – so far. Greenland has seen some mining before but more of the usual suspects of coal, lead, zinc and gold – most of which are dead mines now. Largely because Greenland is a hard row to hoe for any sort of mining with the harsh weather and lack of available infrastructure. There is also strong resistance from the locals – but does that matter anymore when the big money gets involved? There is strong local resistance to mining in Alaska and Australia too but the diggers are still scraping away and damn the torpedoes.

He’s worried about the Russians and Chinese in the Arctic

This seems the most likely scenario. Though Greenland is usually associated with Europe via Denmark, once you look at any map – whether Mercator Projection or not – it’s easy to see it’s actually closer to North America than Europe. Which makes it an ideal hidey hole for say, Russian and/or Chinese military vessels to lurk if they so wished to attack say, some U.S. targets.

True, the U.S already does have a military base on Greenland – where don’t they? – in the Northwest called Pituffik Space Base. A key cog in their missile early warning system but that’s all they’ve got up there – Russia has 50 bases in the Arctic alone. Which may not have mattered so much before in the days of husky sleds, but with climate change melting Arctic ice, the Northern Sea Route is coming more into focus.

The Polar Silk Road

The Northern Sea Route is a 3,500-mile shipping lane extending across the Arctic from the Bering Strait to the Barent Sea that was not really navigable until recently due to excessive ice. But with the icebergs melting away, suddenly ships of all types can zip back and forth between Asia and Europe two weeks quicker – and not have to deal with Americans in any form along the way. Little wonder both the Russians and Chinese are keen on developing this passage with the latter even dubbing it the ‘Polar Silk Road.’

The bigger picture

Taken in context with Trump’s other concurrent obsession of annexing the Panama Canal – another vital commercial shipping passage – it becomes clear that the Americans are panicking that they are steadily losing control of the world’s waterways. Trump’s tantrums on his call with Mette Frederiksen, the Danish Prime Minister, when she refused to budge on his demands and the language of his ludicrous claim of the purchase being vital to the ‘upkeep of the Free World’ suggest that his military is very concerned indeed.

What Trump seems incapable of comprehending is that his policy of bullying allies to get a resolution that suits his fellow broligarchs’ bank balances, erases any remaining vestige of goodwill these allies had for the ‘Free World’ America used to stand for. Especially after his previous stint as President, the world can see what Trump and chums really are; low rent used car salesmen. And, due to the continued selfishness and incessant incompetence of its leaders, the United States is running a serious risk of morphing into the irrelevant, obscure, backwater nation Greenland used to be.