Why Donald Trump can’t buy Greenland

Donald Trump has cancelled a visit to Denmark after his attempts to buy Greenland were rebuffed by the Danish prime minister.

According to the BBC, the US president was scheduled to travel to Denmark on 2 September on an official state visit at the invitation of Denmark’s Queen Margrethe II.

However, Trump left the international community scratching their heads last week after reports surfaced that he had asked if Washington might be able to buy Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark.

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Initially the sincerity of Trump’s enquiry was the subject of debate, with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen telling the newspaper Sermitsiaq via Reuters that the request was “absurd”, adding: “Greenland is not for sale. Greenland is not Danish. Greenland belongs to Greenland.”

Although Trump appeared to play along with the joke by later tweeting a Photoshopped image alluding to him “promising” not to build a Trump Tower in Greenland, Frederiksen’s comments appear to have riled him.

On Tuesday, the president tweeted: “Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time.”

He facetiously added that Frederiksen “was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct”.

“At this time, the visit to Denmark is cancelled,” Judd Deere, a White House spokesperson, told The New York Times.

The Danish royal house’s head of communications, Lene Balleby, said the decision was “a surprise”.

So how did Denmark and Greenland become Trump’s latest adversaries?

What has Trump said?

The president is alleged to have spoken on a number of occasions about buying Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory with a population of around 50,000.

White House sources claim Trump discussed the idea at a dinner last year at which he said he’d heard that Denmark found the financial support to the territory burdensome, says The Daily Telegraph.

According to NBC News, he stated that he’d “heard that Denmark was having financial problems because of the subsidies it pays to Greenland”, and openly wondered if he should buy it.

“What do you guys think about that?” Trump is said to have asked the room. “Do you think it would work?”

A number of high-profile Danish lawmakers were quick to mock the president. During a recent trip to Greenland, Danish PM Frederiksen said in The Guardian: “Thankfully, the time where you buy and sell other countries and populations is over. Let’s leave it there. Jokes aside, we will of course love to have an even closer strategic relationship with the United States,” she said.

The Irish Times reports Soren Espersen, a spokesperson for the right-wing Danish People’s Party, saying to state broadcaster DR: “If it’s true that he is working on these thoughts then it’s definite proof that he’s gone crazy. I must say it as it is: the idea that Denmark should sell 50,000 citizens to the US is completely insane.”

Why would the US want Greenland?

It’s not hard to see why Trump might see Greenland as an attractive prospect in a rapidly changing world.

The BBC reports that although more than 80% of the island is covered by an ice cap, global warming appears to be causing this cover to melt increasingly quickly, which has “increased access to its mineral resources”.

These natural resources include coal, zinc, copper and iron ore.

In addition, Greenland has been “gaining attention from global super powers including China, Russia and the United States due to its strategic location”, Reuters reports.

The US already operates one military base on the island. “Any move by the US to seek greater control over Greenland would spark alarm in Moscow, amid increasing militarisation of the Arctic region and attempts by Russia to exert more control over the frozen North,” says The Irish Times.

Asked if she found it flattering that Trump found Greenland attractive, Inuit Ataqatigiit party MP Larsen said: “It is Greenland’s geostrategic location that Trump is interested in. Not the country itself, or Greenlanders. So no – it’s not flattering.”

Is it really a ridiculous proposal?

Despite the scorn being poured on Trump’s idea, this is not the first time that Washington has attempted to prise Greenland away from Denmark.

In 1946, then-president Harry Truman tried to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100m, but his offer was knocked back. Truman had earlier toyed with the idea of swapping land in Alaska for strategic parts of Greenland.

However, the 2019 price tag for Greenland might prove a little eye-watering even for a big spender like Trump. The Telegraph says that any deal would be “likely to cost the American government billions of dollars”, and notes that it is “unclear how an outright purchase would be structured”.

Are all Greenlanders against the idea?

To many Greenlanders, a total divorce from Denmark would be a dream come true.

In 1979, more than two centuries after being proclaimed a Danish colony, Greenland gained home rule in most domestic matters, The Guardian reports. However, Copenhagen is still in charge of defence and foreign affairs.

Some commentators claim that Washington’s advances could be used by Greenland as leverage against the Danes for more self-rule. Indeed, The Independent says that Greenland’s people “are not Danes, nor Europeans, but Inuits with their own language, culture, and way of life”, and that Greenland’s future is arguably “with North America, to which it is closest geographically”.

All the same, Trump seems unlikely to seal any deal to buy the massive island.

As experts point out, Denmark would be reluctant to let go of Greenland if only because that could risk also losing the Faroe Islands - a small archipelago ruled by Copenhagen that is home to an even more vocal independence movement than Greenland.