The visit of US Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife Usha has focused attention on the US obsession with acquiring Greenland. Speaking to reporters last Wednesday, US President Donald Trump repeated his nostrum, “We need Greenland for national security and international security. So, we’ll I think, we’ll go as far as we have to go.”On Friday, as Vance landed at the American Pitufik Space Base in Greenland, Trump repeated his remarks, claiming this time that the US needed the Arctic island territory of Denmark in the interests of “world peace.”He pointed to the alleged traffic of Chinese and Russian ships in the region and said “We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of ‘Do you think we can do without it ?’ We can’t.”In Greenland, Vance accused Denmark of not doing a good job in keeping Greenland safe from Russia and China and suggested that the US could do a better job. However, he did say there were no plans to increase US military presence there, except that the US would put in place additional naval ships. All this is notwithstanding the fact that both the US and Denmark are members of NATO and committed to each other’s security. The only military presence on the island today is the United States.On Thursday speaking in the Arctic city of Murmansk, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that in his view, Trump was serious about his plans relating to Greenland and that they had nothing to do with Russia. He said that these plans have long-standing historical roots going back to the mid-19th century and “it’s clear that the US will continue to systematically pursue its geo-strategic, military-political and economic interests in the Arctic.”Russia, of course, has a huge interest in the Arctic region which fronts a large portion of its coastline. The Russians have nearly a dozen air and naval bases and radar facilities within the Arctic Circle. In his remarks Putin also said that Russia would strengthen its global leadership of the Arctic. Meanwhile, Russian officials have said they were willing to cooperate with the US in different investment projects.In the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago, the Chinese have established their Yellow River Arctic Research station. Though research for “warlike” purposes is prohibited, the 50-odd Chinese researchers there are suspected to belong to its defence establishment.Littoral countries – US, Canada, Denmark and Russia – claim 200 nautical miles of Exclusive Economic Zone into the Arctic Ocean, but they also have conflicting claims based on their continental shelves. Canada claims the Northwest passage as its internal waters, a claim contested by other countries, including the US. As the Arctic ice cap melts, it is opening up a potential sea route from Asia to Europe which is of considerable interest to countries like China and Japan. It is also potentially opening up competition between various countries for seabed resources, principally oil.Trump’s notions of annexation are outlandish in the current context, but in the history of the United States. Besides the ethnic cleansing of the American Indians from their land, the United States took shape through a policy of forcible acquisition and purchase from other powers. What is today the central part of the country – some 2 million square km of territory west of the Mississippi river – was purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million. In the 1840s, the US seized Mexican territory which today comprises the states of Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming in return for $ 15 million in compensation.In 1867, the US purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. The last time the US got land that became its territory was when it acquired three Pacific Ocean island groups as part of the post-World War II arrangement with the United Nations as Trust Territory. Today the Marianas remains as a US territory.In 1868, the US Secretary of State William Henry Seward who had conducted the purchase of Alaska sought to negotiate the purchase of Greenland and Iceland from Denmark for $5 million in gold, but Congressional disinterest blocked the deal. There were several proposals mooted in the ensuing decades, but the most serious was a 1946 US offer of $100 million in gold for Greenland. Along with Iceland, it was viewed by the US military as two of three key essential international locations for US bases. But Denmark turned down the proposal.The single American military facility in Greenland, called the Pitufik Space Base, is an early detection site for missile launches from Russia. About 150 US Air Force and Space Force personnel are stationed there. Today the island remains important to NATO and US security and the Americans now emphasise its North American geography. It must also be seen in the context of the US desire to incorporate Canada into its Union, something that could, along with Greenland, give it an Arctic frontage second only to that of Russia.In 2017, the first Trump Administration began to examine proposals to acquire Greenland. Indeed, in 2019 he cancelled a planned state visit to Denmark over its prime minister’s rejecting the possibility of a sale.He saw it in terms of national security of the US as well as a personal achievement akin to that of President McKinley who annexed Hawaii, defeated Spain in a war and acquired Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico for $20 million.After his election victory, his talk of purchasing or acquiring Greenland became more insistent and he has made all kinds of threats, including that of very high tariffs if it resisted becoming a US territory.Today, to acquire Greenland he would have to have Danish consent if he were to do so within international law. But this is complicated by the relationship of Greenland, which is a self-sovereign territory of Denmark, with its own government. The Danish parliament only handles international matters. There is also a movement in the island for independence.Pro-independence parties won most of the seats in the Greenland parliament earlier this month, but they, too, have expressed their view that they don’t want to be part of the US. Its new Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said that the Vance visit was a signal of a “lack of respect.”Both the prime ministers of Greenland and Denmark have been emphatic in declaring that Greenland is not for sale and did not want to be part of the US. But both countries have been under considerable pressure through US tactics which first had Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. visit the island on a “private” visit in January 2025 where his father phoned-in at a lunch he had organised for local residents at a hotel in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.This was followed by the Vance visit which was first mooted as one in which Usha Vance, accompanied by the national security advisor (NSA) Mike Waltz, would attend a dog-sled race funded by the US and where she would interact with locals. When it became clear that locals did not want to interact with her, it was converted to a visit by both the Vances and the NSA to the US base at Pitufik.Trump has received support from MAGA Republican Congressmen for his venture. But a poll issued by The Wall Street Journal days before he took office, found that 68% of Americans opposed the idea.Given Trump’s personality which is shaped by his obsessions, we probably have not heard the last of the Greenland saga.Manoj Joshi is a Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
