In 2025, President Donald Trump began to make promises about the United States taking Greenland as a territory from the Danish that currently control it. This followed his previous statements during his first presidency, back in 2019, where President Trump had previously made comments about wanting to own the land due to promising land deals that could benefit the United States.
The Danish and the people of Greenland quickly dismissed President Trump’s ideas. Currently, President Trump’s threats about land ownership are receiving more pushback due to rising tensions around the world.
President Trump has been advocating the need for Greenland in order to prevent either Russia or China from taking or buying the land and utilizing it for military purposes. President Trump had also placed interest in the minerals that Greenland has, including: uranium, zinc, iron ore, graphite, gold, copper, and titanium-vanadium.
Greenland occupies an important geopolitical position since it is located between the United States and Europe. Along with this, the island is astride from the GIUK gap, a maritime passage that is between Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, and links them to both the Arctic and the Atlantic Ocean.
However, before getting into current events, it’s important to understand how the United States, Greenland, and Denmark have gotten involved with each other before.
After the successful purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867, former President Andrew Johnson’s administration sought to expand U.S. influence in the Pacific and set his sights on other Arctic territories.
Former treasury secretary and ardent expansionist Robert J. Walker, who had helped broker the Alaska deal, recommended that the United States add Greenland and Iceland to its inventory, according to a report done by the U.S. State Department. He had noted both Greenland’s wide landscape and mineral wealth in his report.
In 1951, the United States met with Danish negotiators and presented a draft of the Greenland defense agreement that had barely mentioned the Kingdom of Denmark. The U.S. negotiators primarily focused on building the Thule base, and they overlooked Denmark’s rightful claims to sovereignty in Greenland.
Indigenous Greenlanders were not part of the 1951 negotiations, and while the Danish did agree to the terms of the deal, the Danish chief negotiator claimed that, “we have practically sold Greenland to the United States”.
After the Cold War, the United States greatly reduced its military presence in Greenland. In 2004, the pact was last amended in order to recognize Greenland’s Home Rule government that was established in 1979 but not to restrict U.S. military operations on the island.
At the beginning of 2026, President Donald Trump made his ambitions to control Greenland very clear, claiming that it’s necessary for national security. Denmark, Greenland, and other countries that are a part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had pushed against his plans.
Following the tense weeks of meetings about what to do with Greenland, President Trump began making threats of military action, claiming that he couldn’t rule it out. On top of this, he also threatened new tariffs on some European nations if he was blocked from purchasing Greenland.
Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen vowed on January 13 that the island chooses Denmark over the United States, choosing to fight against President Trump’s takeover threats. Opinion polls in Greenland have previously shown that the people are overwhelmingly against United States control. Denmark has promised to boost health-care spending and infrastructure investments in recent months, while also aiming to ease tensions between them and the Trump administration by investing in the Arctic defense.
However, it is important to recognize how wide the problems have spread world wide as well.
More than a century ago, President Woodrow Wilson bought the Virgin Island from Denmark for $25 million after threatening to take them by force. During this time, a war was occurring in Europe and the United States was looking to stake a claim in Latin America. By using the same arguments that President Trump is now, Wilson said that he wanted the islands for new trade routes and to prevent others from dominating the region.
After the purchase of the islands, they served as a strategic Caribbean outpost for the United States military and a hub of naval operations. However, the Navy Air Station on the territory closed in 1948, and the Virgin Islands never became the significant military assent that was envisioned.
After the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, the ships that were used marked the first major navy presence on the islands in decades. Some residents had welcomed the ships and the people they had brought, along with the economic boost. However, others were frightened.
After the annexation of Venezuela, President Trump had been more willing to aggressively press on purchasing Greenland, and refused to rule out doing it through military force. On January 23, President Trump had taken back some of his rhetoric, claiming that the United States would have “total access” to the Arctic island through a deal he was negotiating.
Indeed, President Trump did admit in the end that he may not formally acquire
Greenland.
It is important to realize that major world countries are deeply entangled with each other, so they will continue to cross paths. In terms of this predicament, Greenland, Denmark, and the United States have a deeper history with each other than what is being taken into consideration. On top of that, the fact that President Trump’s tactics have been effective against Denmark before in purchasing is important to recognize in observing what happens next during these times.
