The Extraordinary Position of President Elect Trump on Greenland
The Causes and Implications of President-elect Donald Trump’s Extraordinary Position on Greenland
There is no longer any doubt that Donald J. Trump will be invested on January 20th, 2025 after the certification of the results on January 6th by the current Vice President and defeated candidate, Ms Kamala Harris. After this date, the 45th and 47th President of the United States will be in charge of the world’s leading power for the next 4 years.
And if we decide to take him at his words, he will pick up right where he left off. Some of his positions are known: absurd or even dangerous for some, hoped for or even required for others: for example, he promised to open the gates of hell for Hamas and the Gaza Strip if the hostages of the attacks of October 7th were not released before he assumed office. On one of his main themes, he has also pledged to deport illegal immigrants en masse as soon as he takes power. No surprise on these points, he campaigned and was elected on those.
Other issues, notably on foreign policy, are less clear: for example, no one knows what the position of the future Trump administration is on the issue of the Ukrainian-Russian conflict. Indeed, President-elect Trump has shown an uncharacteristic restraint. Asked directly several times about the subject, he clearly refused to answer, saying he did not want to jeopardise efforts to find a way out of the crisis.
This is not the big surprise of the last few days: for a few weeks now, Donald Trump has set his sights on Greenland, which he says he wants to control. As in 2019, he started by offering to buy the island but then, in 2025, he went even further by hinting at the possibility of acquiring it by force…
Presentation of Greenland
Greenland is the largest island in the world, located east of the Arctic Archipelago in northeastern North America. Although it belongs to the geographical area of North America, it is an autonomous territory politically and culturally associated with Europe, since it has been a constituent territory of the Kingdom of Denmark since 1813. With about 60,000 inhabitants, Greenland has one of the lowest population density rates in the world.
Greenland Map
The American Interest for Greenland Explained
In the interest of fairness, we must start by saying that these ideas are not just a Trumpian whim. In his defense, Donald Trump is not the first American president to have wanted to buy the island. The first was President Harry S. Truman, who had offered in 1946 to acquire the island for the sum of 100 million dollars. The offer had been refused by the Kingdom of Denmark. If the island is of such interest to the various American administrations, it is because it is of crucial strategic importance according to the United States. A major U.S. military base was established on Thule Island in 1941 and integrated under NATO command in 1951; moreover, the island occupies a central place in the American anti-missile system. American governments are not the only ones to note Greenland’s strategic role, since in 2001, an American journalist, John J. Miller, wrote in National Review Online in a rather discourteous way that “it is a shame that a country as insignificant as Denmark can hold such an important place on such an essential aspect for the security of the United States”.
Greenland’s enviable geographical position is not its only attraction: its subsoil is full of natural resources that have not yet been exploited since they are buried under a thousand-year-old ice cap, such as iron, nickel, cobalt, gold, rubies and water so pure that it is bottled and sold in some countries of the world (China, Gulf countries, United States…) at the price of certain bottles of grand cru wine. These raw materials are coveted by the world’s greatest powers, which have tried in recent years to get closer to the local government to conclude long-term partnerships, with varying success.
For example, China, represented by one of its companies, has tried to foster its economic partnership with the local authorities of Greenland by trying to win the contract for the construction of three new airports on the island. However, their proposal was rejected in 2018. One possible explanation for this rejection is that the area of infrastructure is extremely sensitive, since a port or airport can ostensibly have both a civilian and commercial purpose but be transformed into a military object without much effort. With an “annexation” of the United States by Greenland, the American President could kill two birds with one stone, at a time when political and commercial relations between China and the United States are at an all-time low, particularly because of the status of Taiwan and the customs barriers for the import into the United States of certain raw materials necessary for the construction of telephone batteries for example.
Responses to Greenland’s Threats of Annexation
The response of the Danish authorities was not long in coming: King Frederick X, took advantage of a long-planned change of the Kingdom’s coat of arms for the first time in 500 years to make known the position of the royal house. From now on, instead of the 3 crowns that represented Denmark, Norway and Sweden, we can now find on two of the four quadrants, a bear and a ram, symbols of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, the two autonomous territories of the Kingdom.
Denmark’s Coat of Arms, in the right, the new version with a bear
The Danish government’s response has been less subtle since the Danish Prime Minister Mrs. Mette Frederiksen responded to the ambitions on the control and ownership of the island that “Greenland is not for sale. It is important that the future of Greenland is decided by the Greenlanders themselves and not by anyone else.” Without changing her position, she then invited the new administration, once in place, to hold meetings to maintain or even strengthen the partnership of the two countries.
The Prime Minister of Greenland, Mr. Mute Egede, met with King Frederik X to discuss President Trump’s statements, even though some Greenlanders are no longer satisfied with the status of the autonomous island and want to obtain their complete independence. Becoming the 51st American colony does not seem to be an option for them. However, all parties remain aware of the need to maintain good relations with the United States because of their geographical proximity and their trade relations.
The European Union, for its part, remained cautious, simply stating that its borders were inviolable. However, Georgia Meloni, the Italian Prime Minister, ruled out an annexation or takeover of Greenland by the United States, believing that President Trump’s declaration was primarily intended for China.
The legal consequences of a possible annexation
The international jurisprudence is clear both on sovereignty, self-determination and on annexation. With regard to the first two concepts, which are often dealt with together, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly reaffirmed that States enjoy the most extensive rights for the protection of their populations, resources and borders. For example, in the case on the Legal Consequences for States of South Africa’s Continued Presence in Namibia, the ICJ recalled that South Africa’s mandate for South-West Africa had ended and therefore that both its presence in Namibia and its decisions taken in Namibia were illegal.
With regard to the annexation mentioned by President-elect Trump, the deterioration of the current international context has allowed the International Court of Justice to reiterate in its advisory opinion on the occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, for example, that any annexation in fact or in law of territory beyond the internationally recognized borders of the occupying power is illegal.
The strategic implications of a possible annexation
The possibility of a US takeover of Greenland, including by military control, seems very unlikely for the time being. From the point of view of international relations for one, it would seem impossible for the United States to continue to condemn in any way the special military operation launched by the Kremlin against Ukraine in February 2022 on the grounds that the latter’s entry into NATO constituted a threat to Russia’s national security. The US Congress, which has both the power to approve American aid to Kiev, of which it is the main donor, and the power to declare war on a foreign power, would be in a legally, politically and even morally untenable position.
The second implication of such an annexation would be to change the borders of the European Union since, as we have recalled, the autonomous territory of Greenland currently belongs to the Danish crown, which is a member of the European Union. It is not the only organization to which the Kingdom belongs, since it has been a founding member of NATO since August 24th, 1949, alongside the United States. This alliance, presented as a defensive one, has as its cornerstone the principle of mutual military assistance in the event of an attack by one of the member countries. Article 5 provides that in such an eventuality, each party “in the exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized in Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, shall assist the party or parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in agreement with the other parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and ensure security in the North Atlantic region“. Applied to the case at hand by virtue of its membership of the Alliance, we would find ourselves in a grotesque and unthinkable situation where the member countries, 30 of which are on the European continent, could, in the context of assistance, take political measures against the United States, NATO’s main force.
This scenario, which remains completely unimaginable in January 2025 if it were to happen, would completely reshuffle the political, strategic and military cards applicable to the international scene and highlight the failure of international law.