By Professor Solomon Ayegba Usman
Since his second coming into the White House, President Donald J. Trump, the 45th and 47th President of the United States, has kept both American domestic politics and global politics busy and engaging.
Within the few weeks he assumed office, the first salvo he fired concerned the Panama Canal. From Panama to Canada, Greenland, and Venezuela, Trump signaled an aggressive foreign policy posture. While he made good on threats in Venezuela following U.S. operations that led to the abduction of President Maduro, he appears, at least for now, to have doubled down on Panama and Canada, but never on Greenland.
The question, therefore, is why the obsession with Greenland, despite the fact that Greenland is part of the sovereign Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark and the United States have maintained long-term bilateral relations and, beyond that, both countries are members of NATO.
While NATO’s Article 5 constitutes the core deterrence clause against threats from outside the alliance, stating that “an armed attack against one or more NATO members in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all,” and that each member agrees to take such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain security, Article 8 imposes and defines internal discipline.
Article 8 requires that each NATO member declare that none of its existing international commitments conflict with the Treaty, and that it will not enter into any future agreements that conflict with NATO obligations.
Thus, Article 5 gives NATO its unmatched strength, while Article 8 prevents that strength from turning inward.
Practically, Article 5 answers the question: what happens if NATO is attacked from outside, while Article 8 answers the question of what happens if a NATO member becomes the problem.
On the Greenland issue between America and Denmark, Article 8 is directly relevant because the threat is coming from within, not outside NATO. America wants to buy Greenland. Denmark does not want to sell. The prospective buyer insists that the owner must sell or risk losing it, either by force or by encouraging Greenlanders to demand independence and then join the United States.
If the latter option succeeded, America would have given Denmark the Texas treatment once applied to Mexico.
Again, I ask: why the obsession with Greenland?
Let me explain this by walking you through history and geopolitical calculations.
Donald Trump’s repeated interest in acquiring Greenland was initially and widely dismissed as eccentric, impulsive, or unserious. On the contrary, Trump is not joking. Stripped of rhetoric and personality, the fixation reveals something far more enduring. It is a classic expression of American geopolitical thinking shaped by geography, security, resources, and great-power rivalry.
For America, interest in Greenland is not just about playing to the gallery or pursuit of vanity or vainglory. It is about power, survival, and the future balance of global influence in an era where the Arctic is emerging as a new strategic frontier.
One thing that has always helped Americans is their ability to see threats far ahead. At the heart of US interest in Greenland lies geography.
Greenland occupies a commanding position between North America and Europe, astride the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, commonly known as the GIUK Gap, one of the most critical military chokepoints in the North Atlantic. Control or influence over this corridor allows the monitoring of Russian submarines and aircraft moving from the Arctic into the Atlantic.
For decades, the United States has relied on this geography for early warning and deterrence, which explains why it operates the Pituffik, formerly Thule, Space Base in northern Greenland. The base plays a vital role in missile detection, space surveillance, and ballistic missile defense.
From a military standpoint, Greenland is already indispensable to American security architecture, but geography alone does not explain the urgency.
What lies beneath Greenland’s ice is equally consequential.
Geological surveys reveal vast deposits of critical minerals and rare earth elements such as lithium, graphite, cobalt, nickel, copper, uranium, zinc, neodymium, and dysprosium. These materials are indispensable to modern life and modern warfare.
The smartphones, computers, and laptops you are using to read this article, as well as electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, advanced semiconductors, satellites, radar systems, jet engines, and precision-guided weapons, all depend on these rare earth elements. Control over these resources increasingly translates into technological and military supremacy.
This leads directly to the China factor. For now, China dominates the global supply chain for rare earth processing and refinement, even when raw materials originate elsewhere. This dominance gives Beijing enormous leverage over global technology and defense industries. American strategists fear a future crisis in which China could restrict access to these materials, potentially crippling U.S. military production and technological innovation. Are you beginning to see what President Trump and the rest of Americans are seeing now?
Greenland represents one of the few places where the West could diversify supply chains and reduce dependence on China. As climate change melts Arctic ice and makes extraction more feasible, Greenland’s strategic value rises sharply.
In any case, what Trump is doing today has been done by presidents before him. The difference is that others relied more on diplomatic maneuvering, while Trump seeks to have his way through Trumpism, whatever that may be.
Therefore, Trump’s Greenland rhetoric fits into a much longer historical pattern of American territorial expansion driven by strategic necessity. From its earliest days, the United States pursued land not merely for settlement, but for security, resources, and geopolitical advantage.
In 1803, under President Thomas Jefferson, the United States completed the Louisiana Purchase, acquiring an immense territory from France that today constitutes all or parts of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. That single transaction doubled the nation’s size, secured the Mississippi River, and removed a European power from America’s continental interior.
In 1819, under President James Monroe, the United States acquired Florida from Spain through the Adams-Onís Treaty, strengthening American control of the Gulf of Mexico and eliminating foreign footholds in the Southeast
Expansion accelerated under President James K. Polk, whose administration oversaw some of the most consequential territorial gains in U.S. history. Texas was annexed in 1845 after seceding from Mexico, a move driven by security and economic considerations.
In 1846, again under James K. Polk, the Oregon Treaty with Britain peacefully divided the Oregon Territory, giving the United States what would become Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming.
Following the Mexican-American War, the Mexican Cession of 1848 transferred vast lands to the United States, comprising today’s California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming, thereby transforming America into a continental and Pacific power. During the same period, the United States secured the Pacific Northwest through diplomacy rather than war.
In 1854, under President Franklin Pierce, the Gadsden Purchase added a small but strategically vital strip of land from Mexico, forming parts of southern Arizona and New Mexico, primarily to facilitate transportation and consolidate control of the Southwest.
America’s expansion did not end at the continent’s edge. In 1867, under President Andrew Johnson, the United States purchased Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Mocked at the time as Seward’s Folly, Alaska later proved invaluable for its oil, minerals, and Arctic military positioning during the Cold War.
In 1898, under President William McKinley, the United States annexed Hawaii, driven by naval strategy, trade routes, and competition among imperial powers. Hawaii’s location transformed it into a critical Pacific military hub and eventual state.
Seen through this historical lens, Trump’s interest in Greenland is not an anomaly in the American context. Rather, it is a modern echo of a long-standing doctrine that territory confers security, resources, and power. What has changed is not the logic, but the legal and diplomatic environment.
In the 19th century, land could be bought, annexed, or seized with relatively few constraints. However, the realities of the 21st century are different, as international law, sovereignty, and alliance systems now impose limits. These limits become most evident in the case of Greenland.
Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, a sovereign NATO member. Any attempt by the United States to seize Greenland by force would constitute an attack on a NATO ally, potentially triggering Article 5 and unraveling the transatlantic alliance. Danish leaders have made it clear that Greenland is not for sale, and European officials have warned that such aggression could fracture NATO itself, ironically weakening the very security Trump claims to protect.
If this happens, it would mean that, just like the Warsaw Treaty Organsation, a counterweight military alliance against NATO during the Cold War that dissolved from within, a similar fate could await NATO unless all concerned members backpedal.
In reality, the United States already enjoys extensive military access to Greenland through long-standing agreements. It does not need ownership to benefit strategically. Trump’s fixation reflects frustration with diplomatic constraints in an era of intensifying great-power competition, particularly as Russia militarized the Arctic and China expanded its influence under the banner of being a near-Arctic state.
Interestingly, Greenland symbolizes the future battleground of global power, where climate change, critical minerals, technology, and military strategy converge.
So, Trump’s obsession was not about ice or the greenery of Greenland. It is about who controls the strategic foundations of the next century. While his methods were controversial and often crude, the underlying questions he raised about Arctic security, resource dependency, and geopolitical competition remain real, unresolved, and central to the future of American power.
Solomon Ayegba Usman, PhD, teaches Political Science and International Relations and Diplomacy at the University of The Gambia.
