Throughout the Trump administration’s monthslong exercise in escalatory rhetoric surrounding the president’s ardent desire for Greenland, a key throughline has emerged. Rather than a bid for the mineral wealth buried in the Arctic island, which is semi-sovereign and administered by Denmark, Trump and U.S. officials have framed the territory as critical to entrenching the U.S.’s strategic seniority in the far north.
Trump’s envoy to Greenland, his press secretary and his vice president have all recently argued that this is a foreign-policy play. “American supremacy in the Arctic is non-negotiable,” Jeff Landry, Louisiana governor, recently wrote in the New York Times, while Karoline Leavitt called Greenland “vital” for deterring America’s “adversaries in the Arctic.” JD Vance said it in March: “We need to ensure that America is leading in the Arctic, because we know that if America does not, other nations will fill the gap where we fall behind.”
