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Trump Wants Greenland Because It’s Big: Full Stop [1]

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Date: 2025-04 

I was going to do a piece on Trump’s desire to take over Greenland, but decided that I couldn’t do anything better than to encourage people to watch this 60 Minutes segment on Greenland. There are three main takeaways from the segment.

First, the idea that the United States needs to take over Greenland for security reasons is complete nonsense. Greenland and Denmark are both in NATO. That means that the U.S. is already directly involved in the defense of Greenland. It currently has two military bases there. It had more in the past. If Trump or any other U.S. president were to say they wanted more based for security reasons, there is no doubt that they would get them.

Second, there is no pot of gold in Greenland’s mineral wealth. Greenland does have some marketable minerals, but these are available in many other places in the world. And most of those other places are more accessible than Greenland. Also, Greenland already does allow foreign companies to mine its minerals. The reason they don’t is because it’s not profitable.

Finally, the people of Greenland do not want to become part of the United States. They have not always been thrilled about their relationship with Denmark, but they have chosen to put independence off the table for the time being. Whatever appeal being part of the United States might have had seems to have disappeared after everyone in Greenland heard Trump boasting about how he was going to take the country in his March address to Congress. Apparently, unlike Republicans in the House and Senate, Greenlanders have some self-respect.

Anyhow, this is the picture. The question remains, if the reasons Trump is giving for taking Greenland are lies, what is his real motive? I don’t like to get into Trump’s head, but the most obvious explanation is that it is big. It’s pretty ridiculous for a superpower to want to take over a country, violating international law and alienating longstanding allies, just to occupy more space on a map, but this is Donald Trump we’re talking about.

Oh yeah, Trump urged his FCC chair to impose the “maximum fine and punishment” against CBS for this segment.

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[1] Url: https://cepr.net/publications/trump-wants-greenland-because-its-big/

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