January 10, 2025
Why Greenland Matters
Rather than blustering about using military force, Donald Trump should commence behind-the-scenes talks with the Danish and Greenland governments about basing rights and other agreements limiting Chinese investment.
by Mathew Burrows
Editor’s Note: The Red Cell series is published in collaboration with the Stimson Center. Drawing upon the legacy of the CIA’s Red Cell—established following the September 11 attacks to avoid similar analytic failures in the future—the project works to challenge assumptions, misperceptions, and groupthink with a view to encouraging alternative approaches to America’s foreign and national security policy challenges. For more information about the Stimson Center’s Red Cell Project, see here.
Red Cell
The media outrage over a president-elect who campaigned against war not ruling out the use of military force to obtain Greenland (and the Panama Canal) is right and understandable but misses the Arctic’s growing strategic dimension and Russia and China’s progress in staking out their claims. Greenland is rich in mineral deposits, and its geographic position makes control over Greenland and the Arctic crucial for power projection, rival monitoring, and securing shipping routes.
Many viewers of the second season of the “Trump Show” see the president-elect’s warmongering as just another aspect of his blustering personality and not something to be taken seriously. This misses the significant implications of Trump’s ambitions. Climate change, which Trump has decried as a hoax, is melting Arctic icecaps, potentially revealing previously inaccessible raw material deposits. Greenland’s strategic position and rich raw material reserves, including oil, gas, zinc, copper, platinum, and rare earths, make it crucial in the Arctic region. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the region has an estimated 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30 percent of undiscovered natural gas. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that Greenland has 1.5 million tons of rare-earth element reserves, close to the 1.8 million tons in the United States. However, China leads with 44 million tons of deposits and could use them as leverage in a trade war. Given Trump’s tariff threats to China, Greenland’s rare-earth deposits are becoming increasingly significant.
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-greenland-matters-214347
