Why Trump Wants Greenland and How He Can Take It
In a move no one saw coming, Donald Trump kicked off his second term by threatening to take “ownership and control” of Greenland. But after dominating the headlines for weeks, Trump’s desire to take over the world’s largest island got lumped together with all his other imperialistic bullying, like his taunts about making Canada the 51st state. While Trump never stopped talking about Greenland, by the end of 2025 he seemed far more focused on ICE raids and building his White House ballroom.
Then on January 4, the United States attacked Venezuela and deposed its president, Nicolás Maduro. Just hours after the raid, Trump threatened Greenland may be next.
Now, Trump’s threats seem very serious, and the leaders of NATO, Denmark, and Greenland, which is a semi-autonomous Danish territory, are rattled. But is this just more geopolitical bullying? Or is Trump really about to make a move to seize the island? Could he buy it? Would he use military force? Here’s the latest news and everything you need to know about Trump’s renewed drive to acquire Greenland.
Why does Trump want Greenland?
Trump has historically not done a great job of articulating why exactly he wants the island, which is largely blanketed by ice and has a population of just 57,000 people.
When asked about his Arctic ambitions a day after the Venezuela attack, he said, “We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic … Denmark is not going to be able to do it.” He also said something incoherent about Greenland being “surrounded by Russian and Chinese ships” and made a joke about dogsleds.
Trump: We need Greenland. Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships.
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 5, 2026
Reporter: What would the justification be for a claim to Greenland?
Trump: The EU needs us to have it. pic.twitter.com/DQT9cFGxD7
While Greenland is the least-densely populated country, it is important for economic and defense reasons given its location between the U.S., Russia, and Europe. It also has valuable natural resources, such as oil, natural gas, and rare-earth minerals.
Trump often notes that the U.S. has wanted Greenland for a long time, and he isn’t wrong. For more than a century, American leaders have been looking for ways to exert greater control over the island (though no American president in recent memory has talked so openly about seizing it).
Greenland’s strategic value has increased in recent years since melting sea ice has opened up new Arctic shipping routes. Alexander B. Gray explained in a 2024 Wall Street Journal opinion piece:
Russia and China are threatening the status quo in the Arctic. Moscow has claimed significant chunks of the Arctic Sea, including inside Greenland’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Russian survey ships have encroached on Greenland’s waters, and Russia is expanding its Arctic bases and formidable icebreaker fleet. China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” established a shipping network called the “Polar Silk Road” to bind Arctic communities closer to Beijing’s economic and political agenda, and built its own fleet of icebreakers.
Will Trump use military force to seize Greenland?
The White House has continued floating that option in recent days, even after Denmark’s leaders warned that would mean the end of NATO.
“If the United States attacks another NATO country, everything stops, including NATO, and thus the security that has been established since the end of the Second World War,” Danish prime minster Mette Frederiksen said on January 5.
A day later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said all options are on the table when it comes to acquiring Greenland.
“The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal,” she said in a statement.
Trump himself has alluded to taking Greenland by force on several occasions.
The president seemed to threaten military action in his March 4 address to Congress, saying of the island, “I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
Trump’s message to the people of Greenland is a naked threat…
— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) March 5, 2025
“We’re going to get Greenland
…one way or another”
And the laughs are all the more chilling.
pic.twitter.com/RnGkiSbjob
A few weeks later, he told NBC News, “I never take military force off the table, but I think there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force.”
Is the real goal to buy Greenland, not invade it?
Post–Venezuela raid, Stephen Miller, Leavitt, and other Trump-administration officials have emphasized that the use of force in Greenland is still very much on the table. However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio privately told lawmakers that the goal is actually to buy Greenland, per The Wall Street Journal:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers that recent administration threats against Greenland didn’t signal an imminent invasion and that the goal is to buy the island from Denmark, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Rubio’s statements, which were made Monday during a closed briefing, come as the White House has been offering increasingly belligerent statements about controlling the island.
Rubio tried to downplay the idea that he was contradicting other Trump officials on Tuesday. When asked about buying Greenland, he said that has always been the president’s goal, though he’s open to other options.
“Well, that’s always been the president’s intent from the very beginning,” Rubio said. “He said it very early on. I mean, this is not new; he talked about it in his first term. And he’s not the first U.S. president that has examined or looked at how could we acquire Greenland. There’s an interest there. But — so I just reminded [lawmakers] of the fact that not only did Truman want to do it but President Trump’s been talking about this since his first term.”
Q: Does the US intend to buy Greenland?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 7, 2026
MARCO RUBIO: That's always been the president's intent pic.twitter.com/CKPRH8kUZp
Can Trump actually buy Greenland?
Theoretically, yes. But both Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly said the island is not for sale. And as the BBC reported, the transaction would be extremely complicated:
Any funds would have to be appropriated by Congress, and acquiring Greenland by treaty would require support from two-thirds of the Senate — which experts say would be difficult to secure.
The European Union would also have to sign off on the deal.
While Trump could theoretically try to strike a deal unilaterally without involving Greenland or Congress, experts believe that is extremely unlikely.
Monica Hakimi, a professor of international law at Columbia University, told the BBC that “one could imagine a situation” in which Denmark, Greenland, and the U.S. all agree to a sale. However, “for it to be completely consistent with international law, such a treaty would probably also have to involve Greenlandic participation for their own self-determination.”
Does Greenland want to be part of the U.S.?
It does not. A poll conducted in January 2025 found that most Greenlanders wanted independence from Denmark and few wanted to be part of the U.S., as The Wall Street Journal reported:
Some 84% of Greenlanders want independence — with only 9% outright opposed to it — according to a survey earlier this year commissioned by the Danish newspaper Berlingske and Greenlandic newspaper Sermitsiaq. Only 6% of Greenlanders polled favored becoming part of the U.S.
As a semi-autonomous Danish territory, Greenland has its own elected government and manages most of its internal affairs, but Denmark handles its defense and foreign policy.
The island has been moving toward greater independence in recent years. All major parties in Greenland support independence from Denmark, though they are split on when and how that should happen. The center-right, pro-business Demokraatit party won a surprise victory in the March 2025 parliamentary election. The party strongly opposes Trump’s efforts to take control of Greenland and favors a more gradual move to independence from Denmark.
Are there other ways for the U.S. to get what it wants in Greenland?
While most Greenlanders do not want to be part of Trump’s America, they are not opposed to maintaining and even strengthening ties to the U.S.
As Gray argued in the Journal, Greenland could form a “free association” pact that brings the island closer to the U.S. while remaining autonomous:
The U.S. can offer an option that preserves Greenland’s sovereignty while protecting it from malign actors. The U.S. has used Compacts of Free Association for decades with three small island states in the Pacific. These COFAs allow Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands full independence and the power to conduct their own foreign relations while also giving the U.S. military access and requiring Washington to provide for their defense. The U.S. also gives economic support.
Analysts told the New York Times that, due to an obscure Cold War agreement, Trump already has the ability to increase the U.S. military presence in Greenland without taking over the country:
Under a little-known Cold War agreement, the United States already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland. Right now, the United States has one base in a very remote corner of the island. But the agreement allows it to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases across Greenland, “house personnel,” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”
It was signed in 1951 by the United States and Denmark, which colonized Greenland more than 300 years ago and still controls some of its affairs.
“The U.S. has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” said Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen.
So Trump could just inform Denmark that the U.S. is expanding its military presence on the island. And as for Greenland’s natural resources, Denmark has repeatedly said it’s open to doing business.
Peter Ernstved Rasmussen, a Danish defense analyst, told the Times that the U.S. would probably “always get a yes” on reasonable requests about Greenland.
“I have a very hard time seeing that the U.S. couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted,” he said, “if it just asked nicely.”
But of course, asking nicely isn’t really Trump’s thing, and right now he’s high on imperialistic demonstrations of U.S. military might.