When United States President Donald Trump said he wanted to own Greenland, a big icy island on the roof of the world belonging to Denmark, by whatever means—the easy way or the hard way, as he put it —the world went crazy speculating why he so badly wants it.
He says he wants it for the security of the US and the rest of the world, that it was for vital missile geometry of the Golden Dome defence system. At other times, he has said he wants to keep China and Russia out of Greenland which, it is quite true, is a very strategic military location for North America and Europe.
But the US does not need to own it to build a defence system: it already has a treaty with Greenland allowing it to establish military bases there, which it has. As a matter of fact, there are claims that the US has closed some of its bases in Greenland, which would contradict the security argument.
The fringes are screeching that there is a portal to magical realms that Trump wants to secure, that there are gateways in Greenland to other worlds and dimensions. Others scream that the original alien race that inhabited earth migrated there and continues to live peacefully, manipulating and controlling human affairs from the relative privacy beneath the ice fields.
I have seen one person argue that because of global warming, in 30 years, Greenland will be one of the few liveable places on earth, especially in summer, so the US wants it to produce food for its people. Yet another one offers the rather ludicrous concept that Trump wants to invade Greenland, a Nato territory, to break the alliance, which is his objective since he is a “Russian asset”.
Yet many others have proffered that because of the coming “Geophysical Event” which involved crustal displacement, Greenland will become a tropical paradise—and Africa pushed down to the Arctic zones.
There are two arguments that are persuasive. One is by an account on X calling itself Josh Wolfe. It argues that Trump has no intention of using force, he is negotiating in his trademark fashion: he makes an outrageous demand, which he doesn’t really want, but which makes his real demand look reasonable and palatable to the other side. So he threatens force, everyone goes apoplectic with outrage and indignation, then he pivots by making an offer that wipes out Denmark’s foreign debt and doubles Greenland’s GDP—and makes every Greenlander a billionaire. Suddenly, everyone is looking, not at a military confrontation, but at an attractive financial proposition.
But why go to those extents? The answer, according to Wolfe, is rare earth minerals. He calls it “a supply chain annexation dressed in the costume of territorial ambition”. What Trump really wants, he argues, are two spots in southern Greenland—Knavefjeld and Tanbreez—which are said to have deposits of two rare earth minerals used in advanced weapons: dysprosium and terbium. These are used in fighter jets, precision munitions, submarines and even electric vehicle batteries. China has cornered the supply and processing of these minerals, the US is left with almost nothing.
There is another, somewhat related argument, that Trump made a deal with oligarchs who supported his campaign and who own mineral rights in Greenland that he would annex it as the quid pro quo so that they can make money. I find the theory about securing the future defence supplies more believable than a ka-corrupt deal between billionaires.
And to get everyone to support his demands, Trump has wielded US power in such a blunt manner that it has put a knife to the golden threads that held the so-called “rule-based international order” together and now things have fallen apart. Or as the rather brave Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it, ruptured.
The rule-based system is a whole thing composed of rules and institutions that govern how countries relate. They are supposed to keep the peace, maintain economic stability and prevent the big powers from riding roughshod over the smaller powers.
From our perspective, the system kept us in our place of subservience and allowed the big powers to ruthlessly exploit us—our resources and our voices in international debates. We opened our markets and our natural resources to the hegemons of that system, they closed their markets to us and presumed to offer us “aid”. And after 60 years, we are probably worse off than we were at the beginning.
There were two sets of rules: one for us and another for the big boys. A big power can invade, cart away the president of a weak country, rule the country and exploit its resources at will. Russia can wake up in the morning and decide that Ukraine shouldn’t exist as a country and set about destroying it. Mark Carney and Europe discovered the double standards when Trump hammered them with tariffs to force them to drop their opposition to his Greenland annexation.
When you really look at it, Trump’s many adventures, while disadvantaging many “middle powers”, might work for our liberation by loosening the ropes that tie our legs, while folk walk away with our things. Am I beginning to sound like QAnon?
