US President Donald Trump’s renewed campaign to acquire Greenland—complete with threats of military force, tariffs against Denmark, and now reports of cash payments to Greenlanders—represents yet another chapter in America’s inability to distinguish between genuine national security interests and grandiose imperial fantasies.
Trump has refused to rule out using military or economic coercion to acquire the Arctic territory, despite consistent rejection from both Greenlandic and Danish authorities. The administration has even threatened “very high” tariffs against Denmark, a NATO ally, if it resists American attempts to make Greenland a US territory. This isn’t diplomacy—it’s the geopolitical equivalent of a hostile corporate takeover.
The administration’s talking points are familiar: Greenland’s strategic location along the GIUK Gap provides surveillance capabilities in the Arctic, and the island contains rare earth minerals crucial for defense technologies.
White House officials claim control over Greenland would help deter Russian and Chinese aggression in the Arctic region. But here’s what the hawks won’t tell you: the United States already has a 1951 defense treaty with Denmark granting permanent jurisdiction over defense areas, including Thule Air Base. We already have what we supposedly need.
As former US Ambassador to NATO Nick Burns correctly noted, there’s a straightforward path to achieving America’s stated objectives: respecting Denmark’s sovereignty while working diplomatically to secure American investment and military presence. Instead, the Trump administration has chosen confrontation over cooperation, alienating a longtime ally for the sake of what Trump himself once described as “essentially, a big real estate deal.”
The costs of this adventure would be staggering—and not just financially. 85% of Greenlanders oppose American takeover, and many Danes view their historical ties with Greenland as integral to Danish national identity.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that any U.S. military attack on a NATO ally would jeopardize the entire NATO alliance. For what? To satisfy Trump’s desire for a “place in American history like William Seward’s purchase of Alaska”?
This is the same strategic logic that led us into decades of quagmire in the Middle East—the belief that American power can simply reshape geopolitical realities through force or economic pressure. We learned nothing from Iraq. We learned nothing from Afghanistan. And now we’re contemplating military action against a NATO ally over a territory whose 57,000 residents have made clear they want no part of this scheme.
The realist case against Trump’s Greenland gambit is straightforward: the costs far exceed any conceivable benefits. We would strain or destroy our most important military alliance, validate Chinese and Russian propaganda about American imperialism, and embark on an expensive colonial project in an era when we can’t even maintain our own infrastructure.
Even Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has dismissed the notion of military action, stating, “I don’t think anybody’s seriously considering that.” That Republican leaders are publicly distancing themselves from this idea tells you everything about its strategic wisdom.
The tragedy is that Trump’s bombast obscures legitimate questions about Arctic security and great power competition. Instead of working with our Danish allies to strengthen our existing presence in Greenland, instead of developing a coherent Arctic strategy in consultation with our NATO partners, we’re pursuing a 19th-century land grab that would make us international pariahs.
There’s a term for countries that threaten military force to acquire territory from their allies: adversaries. If China threatened to invade Taiwan or Russia threatened Ukraine, we’d call it aggression. When we do it, we call it “national security.”
American foreign policy is at its best when it aligns the nation’s ideals with its interests—when it leads through example rather than coercion. Trump’s Greenland obsession represents American foreign policy at its worst: expensive, unnecessary and ultimately self-defeating.
It’s time for a constructive disengagement from this imperial fantasy before it does lasting damage to the alliances that actually keep America secure.
This article was originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriber here.