So Trump wants Greenland? Don’t laugh, America’s been here before

Donald Trump’s inflammatory remarks about his incoming administration’s desire to acquire Greenland “for national security purposes” – whether as a purchase or by force – have been met with a chorus of stern responses from European leaders, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

While there is a characteristic element of bluster involved, Trump’s comments highlight a real and growing consciousness of the strategic and economic importance of the Arctic region and a distinct shift in American foreign policy, away from alliance management and an “international rules-based order” towards dangerous economic and military unilateralism.

In Donald Trump’s sights for acquisition: Greenland and Canada.Credit: Graphic: Nathan Perri/Photo: AP

Greenland is particularly attractive to American strategic planners because of its bountiful mineral endowments and its strategic position within the Arctic circle. In fact, the United States has sought to buy Greenland for these reasons several times before. As far back as 1868, the year after he orchestrated the purchase of Alaska from Russia, secretary of state William H. Seward commissioned a study into the resources of Greenland and Iceland, and made informal approaches to the government of Denmark on buying both territories.

At the dawn of the Cold War, American defence planners made a more serious attempt to obtain the world’s largest island, seeing it as a highly valuable strategic area in the coming confrontation with the Soviet Union, especially given the recent rise in the importance of air power and Greenland’s position between major North American and Russian population centres via Arctic air routes.

The Truman administration’s offer of $US100 million in gold bars was rejected by Denmark, but the United States was able to secure rights to construct an air base at Thule, 1200 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, in 1951. Originally designed as a radar and refuelling station for American strategic bombers, Thule has been renamed as the Pittufik Space Base, and is today used for missile warning, space surveillance, and satellite command and control operations as part of the US Space Force’s global defence infrastructure.

As tensions between the US, Russia, and China grow, the planet warms, and the yearly ice-free periods in the Arctic Ocean lengthen, it is expected that the region will become an important commercial maritime route and zone of strategic competition. Passage via the Arctic greatly reduces shipping distances between Europe, North-East Asia and North America as well as allowing the circumvention of chokepoints and areas of geopolitical risk such as the Malacca Straits, the Suez Canal and the Middle East more broadly.

While no clear reference has been made to how the US would look to develop its military capabilities should it acquire Greenland, control of the territory would have strategic benefits in terms of naval, air and missile defence, and power projection over Russia, the North Atlantic and the increasingly important Arctic sea lanes.

The national security implications of the territory for America’s rivalry with China run deeper still. Greenland holds some of the world’s largest known reserves of rare-earth elements, a group of 17 critical minerals used extensively across the high-tech sectors that will define the 21st century economy, including green energy, electric vehicles, medical science and telecommunications. Their most strategically sensitive applications are in the aerospace and defence sectors. Rare earths are used in the propulsion systems of tanks and planes, in missile guidance systems, in satellite communications, laser detection, radar, sonar and many other military technologies.

China controls about 60 per cent of rare-earth production and 85 per cent of processing today. The US government, acutely aware of the risks that rare-earth dependence on China poses for its national security, has for several years been investing in building supply chains outside of China. This includes ramping up domestic production and funding the development of critical minerals projects in friendly countries; indeed, a number of Australian rare-earth miners already receive funding from the US Department of Defence and other US government agencies.

Greenland is already positioned as a major potential node in these new rare-earth supply chains. Jose W. Fernandez, the current US Undersecretary of State for Economic Growth, thanked the government of Greenland “for being such great partners in advancing our mutual goal of securing responsible, sustainable and diverse critical mineral supply chains” at a Minerals Security Partnership event in the capital, Nuuk, in November.

While the strategic and economic stakes involved in Trump’s push to control Greenland are clear, the broader implications of the aggressive move for territorial aggrandisement at the expense of a close ally are more important still. Trump’s remarks on Greenland were accompanied by a threat to invade and occupy Panama to retake direct control of the Panama Canal, to annex Canada using “economic force”, and to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”.

Contrary to demonstrating the re-emerging American greatness, these statements signal a retreat from American global leadership. America’s position at the top of the “international rules-based order” has been built on a foundation of significant support from many of the rest of the world’s most powerful states. This model has been referred to as an “empire by invitation” by some influential scholars of American foreign policy. Trump’s threats against several of America’s closest economic and strategic partners highlights an historically significant shift away from this model, at least by a sector of America’s political leadership.

If the US government brazenly bullies and humiliates its allies, relying on military and economic sticks without any carrots, its days of global leadership by consent are numbered. America’s friends will, eventually, begin to question the benefits of a partnership that is so one-sided. Most American leaders and policymakers understand this. Whether they can bring a deeper appreciation of the foundations of American power to bear on the actions of the new administration will have great influence on the shape and stability of the international system in the years ahead.

Dr Stuart Rollo researches and teaches American history, security and international relations theory at the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Terminus: Westward Expansion, China, and the End of American Empire.

Get a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up for our Opinion newsletter.