The massive Arctic island is vital to U.S. interests—whether or not President Trump buys it from Denmark.

Why does Trump want Greenland? 
The president insists that U.S. ownership of the world’s largest island is “an absolute necessity” for national security, and has refused to rule out the use of military force to acquire the self-governing Danish territory. Defense experts disagree with Trump’s takeover threats—most advocate for closer ties with Greenland and NATO ally Denmark—but they agree that Greenland is strategically crucial to the U.S. Three times the size of Texas and home to just 57,000 people, the island is a buffer against Russia and China as the Arctic ice melts, opening new shipping routes between North America, Europe, and Asia. The U.S. has maintained a military presence in Greenland since World War II; the Pituffik Space Base some 750 miles north of the Arctic Circle today houses 200 personnel and a ballistic missile early-warning and defense system. But Trump argues the U.S. needs more control over Greenland to keep up with the great power race now playing out in the Arctic. “I’m talking about protecting the free world,” Trump said. “You have China ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place.” Many foreign policy analysts agree that the U.S. needs to step up its involvement in the region. “We’ve sort of been asleep at the switch,” said Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution. 

What are China and Russia doing?
In recent years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reopened dozens of closed Soviet-era military bases in the far north; built four nuclear-powered icebreakers capable of smashing through 13-foot-thick ice (the U.S. has two icebreakers, both decades old); and carried out Arctic tests of hypersonic missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses and sensors. That matériel could help Russia assert its claims to a swath of disputed Arctic territory and turn the Northern Sea Route—a once-frozen passage along its own Arctic coast—into a new Suez Canal, through which Russian oil and gas could be quickly shipped to Asia. China has also invested in the Northern Sea Route, which would slash the time it takes to ship Chinese products to Europe, and in Greenland has tried unsuccessfully to buy mineral rights, airports, and an abandoned Danish naval base. Jahara Matisek, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, said the U.S. believes China’s real interest in those Greenland projects was to install dual-use equipment that could help control its own military satellites and spy on nearby U.S. operations. “If China can disrupt our ‘Kill Chain’—our space-based assets, our satellites—then we will struggle to shoot things down,” said Matisek. “That’s why Greenland ends up actually mattering a lot.” Other experts believe China’s goal is more straightforward: to box the U.S. out of Greenland’s vast mineral riches. 

What resources are there? 
Greenland has significant reserves of rare earths, plus graphite, copper, nickel, cobalt, and lithium. Those minerals are critical to the production of green energy technologies such as wind turbines and electric-vehicle batteries, as well as artificial intelligence chips and cutting-edge military equipment. But China currently dominates the market for many of those raw materials —it controls about 70 percent of global rare-earth output—leaving the U.S. dangerously reliant on its superpower competitor. Greenland also has large deposits of uranium and up to 52 billion barrels of oil, worth about $4 trillion. America’s interest in the island “is about natural resources,” said Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz. It’s “all part of the ‘America First’ agenda.” 

Can those riches be extracted easily? 
No, which is why the island currently has only two active mines. Most of the critical minerals lie in the craggy hills along the coast, and any new mine will face high startup costs. The weather is hostile—temperatures in the north drop to an average of minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit in winter—and so is the terrain. While the Greenland Ice Sheet has shrunk by some 2,000 square miles over the past four decades, it still covers 80 percent of the island and is 2 miles thick at its deepest point. There are no roads between towns. And the iceberg-clogged waters make shipping dangerous. Outside workers will also likely need to be brought in, because of the small local population. “There has always been a lot of hype, a lot of talk of the potential” in Greenland, said Flemming Getreuer Christiansen, a Danish geoscience consultant. “Trump’s interest may wake up interest now, but the challenges remain the same.” 

What do Greenlanders want? 
Self-determination. A Danish colony for more than two centuries, Greenland secured home rule and established its own parliament in 1979. Much of the population, which is 90 percent native Inuit, is now eager for true independence. “Greenlanders are very tired of being treated like second-class citizens,” said Ulrik Pram Gad, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte Egede announced this month that work on an independence framework has begun, and hinted that an independence referendum could be held in April. Independence would be expensive: Denmark spends about $1 billion a year on the island—about $17,500 per Greenlander—and covers half of its budget. Some residents argue that, once independent, Greenland could enter a free-association compact with America, under which the U.S. would provide economic support in exchange for access to its resources. Egede has expressed interest in greater cooperation with the U.S.—but nothing more. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale,” he said. “The future is ours and ours to shape.”

When Trump discovered Greenland 
The president’s obsession with Greenland dates back to the early days of his first term, when cosmetics heir Ronald S. Lauder pitched him on the idea of a takeover and offered to serve as a back channel to the Danish government. Trump was so fixated on Greenland that it “absorbed the National Security Council staff for months,” according to New York Times reporter Peter Baker. NSC staffers talked with the Danish ambassador to the U.S. and developed a suite of options, “including a lease proposal akin to a New York real estate deal.” Eager to curb Chinese influence in the Arctic, Trump’s then–national security adviser John Bolton thought he could secure an increased U.S. presence in Greenland. But Trump kept demanding outright ownership, even suggesting the U.S. trade Puerto Rico for the island. The plan collapsed in 2019 after The Wall Street Journal reported on his aspirations, which Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called “absurd.” Trump slammed Frederiksen as “nasty” and canceled a trip to Denmark. This time around, Frederiksen is trying a gentler approach, telling Trump simply that Greenland should decide its future.

President Trump “doesn’t want to ban TikTok,” said Nick Catoggio in The Dispatch, “he wants to exploit it.” One of Trump’s first acts in office was to override a law that Congress passed with “huge bipartisan majorities” to force the social media app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it to an American company or shut it down. The Supreme Court last week affirmed that the law was a constitutional response to the national security threat posed by foreign ownership of a major media outlet and the data it collects on 170 million U.S. users. But Trump signed an executive order delaying the law’s enforcement for 75 days, saying he developed “a warm spot” for TikTok, which was filled with young Trump supporters’ posts during the campaign. He said he’d try to negotiate a deal in which an American would buy half of ByteDance’s ownership. So far, the Chinese company has refused to sell the site, proving that TikTok “isn’t about profit. It’s about influence.” Trump just wants to share in that influence. “Forced to choose between national security and his own vanity, it’s no contest.” 

During his first term, Trump tried to ban TikTok, said Amanda Marcotte in Salon. In issuing an executive order that was later blocked by federal courts, Trump argued then that the site could enable “China to track the locations of federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.” What changed? Trump has since learned that “TikTok is a shockingly efficient disseminator of disinformation,” such as claims that vaccines and sunscreens don’t work. Disinformation “is Trump’s main stock-in-trade.” As a highly addictive propaganda tool, TikTok “is a fascist’s dream.” 

Trump will be making “a grave mistake” if he lets China continue to control this app, said National Review in an editorial. Under Chinese law, its government can demand users’ data from ByteDance, and it’s been proven that TikTok’s algorithm suppresses anti-­China posts and promotes pro-­China propaganda. As “a 17-year-old TikTok junkie,” said Juliet Weisfogel in The New York Times, I actually hope the government “severs me forever from my fix.” Like most of my peers, I spend hours a day endlessly scrolling on the app and talking about what we see; TikTok “has pervaded every corner of our consciousness.” An intervention is necessary. “I cannot imagine a life without it. And yet I desperately need a life without it.”

Renée Zellweger went undercover to perfect her British accent, said Hugh Grant in British Vogue (U.K.). After being cast as the very English lead character in Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001), the Texas-born actress went full Method and spent several weeks working at Picador, the London publisher of Helen Fielding’s smash novels. As publishing assistant “Bridget Cavendish,” Zellweger had to, among other tasks, compile newspaper clippings about the Bridget Jones series. “I started having to clip these articles about this ‘crap American actor’ who was set to play Bridget Jones,” says Zellweger, 55. Audiences would eventually judge her portrayal of a 30-something Londoner credible. But a decade later, Zellweger found herself agreeing with her early critics and decided to take a six-year hiatus from acting. 

“I was sick of the sound of my own voice. When I was working, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, listen to you. Are you sad again, Renée? Oh, is this your mad voice?’ It was a regurgitation of the same emotional experiences.” She kept busy in those years off: studying international law, adopting rescue dogs, and starting a production company. Since returning to acting, she’s kept out the negative voices by staying off social media and refusing to read her reviews. Doesn’t she ever want to know—late at night, feeling insecure—who hates her? “Why care?” Zellweger says. “It’s none of my business.”