WASHINGTON—President Trump made his name on the world’s most famous island. Now he wants to buy the world’s biggest.
The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar with the deliberations, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance, and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.
Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it was a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort was serious.
Very much so. Greenland is the richest unexploited mineral resource on the planet. And given the historic value of “ice box” property of 30 cents per acre (2 cents/acre adjusted for inflation since 1867,) he should be able to pick it up for about $160 million.
I may be a little out of my lane, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea…
Strategically it’s a great location… With global warming, many of the resources trapped under the ice could be very valuable… and it would make a great place for a hotel/casino (I kid)…
Greenland can no longer be bought and sold, as it could in the 1940’s. It is now an autonomous region under the KING of Denmark, but not the GOVERNMENT of Denmark. Denmark provides its national defense and handles its foreign affairs, but aside from that, it is 99.99% an independent nation.
However, Greenland COULD choose to end its relationship with Denmark and sign Articles of Free Association with the United States, meaning that Greenland would stay the way it is, but the United States would become the protecting power, rather than Denmark. It would be a trivial cost to the United States, as we already have a base there and its defense needs are trivial.
If we could get it for $160 million, I’d absolutely support buying it. It’s almost the size of Alaska and Texas combined. That’s some great climate change hedging (except for maybe all of the pathogens trapped under that ice?).
There’s no way it’d sell for that cheap, though. It’d likely be orders of magnitude more.
There are huge valuable mineral sources and high value gems exposed right on the surface. But the Danes won’t allow anyone to file on most of them for environmental reasons. Trump doesn’t care about the environment, so that would not be a problem.
I don’t think so.