Trump’s stated reasons for taking Greenland are wrong – but the tactics fit with the plan to limit China’s economic interests

In 2019, Trump sought to buy Greenland, but was rebuffed. In 2024, he threatened military action, citing national security, despite existing NATO and U.S.-Denmark defense agreements.

In 2019, during his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed a desire to buy Greenland, which has been a part of Denmark for some 300 years. Danes and Greenlanders quickly rebuffed the offer at the time.

During Trump’s second term, those offers have turned to threats.

Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social in late December 2024 that, for purposes of national security, U.S. control over Greenland was a necessity. The president has continued to insist on the national security rationale into January 2026. And he has refused to rule out the use of military force to control Greenland.

From my perspective as an international relations scholar focused on Europe, Trump’s national security rationale doesn’t make sense. Greenland, like the U.S., is a member of NATO, which provides a collective defense pact, meaning member nations will respond to an attack on any alliance member. And because of a 1951 defense agreement between the U.S. and Denmark, the U.S. can already build military installations in Greenland to protect the region.

Trump’s 2025 National Security Strategy, which stresses control of the Western Hemisphere and keeping China out of the region, provides insight into Trump’s thinking.

The United States has tried to acquire Greenland several times.

In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward commissioned a survey of Greenland. Impressed with the abundance of natural resources on the island, he pushed to acquire Greenland and Iceland for US$5.5 million – roughly $125 million today.

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