Make Greenland American

With Inauguration Day less than a week away, President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are signaling that a significant shift in America’s foreign policy priorities is afoot. In addition to reaffirming his commitment to getting tough on Mexico for its role in the illegal immigration crisis and rebalancing America’s trading relationships through tariffs, in recent remarks and Truth Social posts, the president-elect has discussed plans to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, make Canada the 51st state, take back control of the Panama Canal, and make a deal to “MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!”

It has been a long time since Americans heard a leader talk this way, and the response from the media, politicians, and world leaders has ranged from eye rolls—as when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested perhaps they should rename North America “America Mexicana” instead—to defiance. I sense that most Americans simply aren’t sure what to think about the remarks and don’t understand why, exactly, we would want Greenland.

As is typical with President-elect Trump, his ideas have more merit than his detractors are willing to acknowledge.

Look at a globe from the top. What you will see is the North Pole with Alaska, Canada, and Greenland flanking one side and Russia flanking the other until you reach Scandinavia. The Arctic is the frontline of great power competition among the United States, Russia, and China.

This is why the 2024 Department of Defense Arctic Strategy declares, “The United States is an Arctic nation, and the region is critical to the defense of our homeland, the protection of U.S. national sovereignty, and our defense treaty commitments.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin writes that the Arctic is “becoming a venue for strategic competition,” due in part to the “increasing collaboration between the People’s Republic of China and Russia.”

The Arctic Strategy describes the geographic area as “vital for homeland defense” given the “aerospace warning, aerospace control, and maritime warning capabilities” housed there, plus its positioning as “the northern flank for projecting military force from the U.S. homeland” to the Indo-Pacific.

A second strategic significance of Greenland is its abundant natural resources.

The Arctic Institute summarizes research showing that Greenland is home to “25% of the world’s undiscovered hydrocarbon resources along with 9% of the world’s coal and other economically critical minerals.” A survey commissioned by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland found that 25 of 34 minerals deemed “critical raw materials” by the European Union were found in Greenland. In describing China’s range of investments in mining and other infrastructure development in the region, the Arctic Institute concludes, “Greenland may be considered an extremely relevant partner for China due to its rich deposits of iron, zinc, rare earth elements, and uranium.”

President-elect Trump’s statements about Greenland—articulated in his unique rhetorical style—are consistent with America’s key strategic priorities, as defined by a wide range of experts from across the political spectrum in recent years. How, exactly, the United States advances its interests in this regard remains to be determined. Do we buy Greenland and make it a territory like Puerto Rico? Or a state? Or do we enter into a more formal agreement with an otherwise independent nation (Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark) that guarantees our exclusive rights to access the island, the way we have with Guam and elsewhere? Time will tell.

There is a third aspect of this topic that is less tactile as a matter of policy but feels no less significant as a matter of leadership. From its inception, our nation has been characterized by a spirit of exploration, expansion, and destiny. The myths that feed the sense we have of ourselves are tales of courageous explorers defying long odds in pursuit of their dream of a better life, from Plymouth Rock to Lewis and Clark, the Sooners to the 49ers. For 100 years, America’s domestic and foreign policy was dictated by the mandate to control our destiny from sea to shining sea, and the American people cheered as their leaders wrested control from Spain, England, France, and Mexico. No, this was not always pretty (or even legal in some terms), but it defines us as Americans.

President-elect Trump is reviving a sense of that spirit. Just like his economic policy is about reinvigorating our identity as people who make things and his interior policy is about reviving the Western tradition of building beautiful things, his foreign policy is about renewing our spirit as a nation destined for greatness on the world stage, able to provide for itself, and ruthless in defense of itself.

In 2002, Pat Buchanan wrote, “With their freedom and security now at risk, Americans must speak up and speak out on what they want their country’s foreign policy to be, or that policy will be imposed without their being consulted. … Foreign policy is the shield of the republic—to protect our freedom, our citizens, and our honor.”

After 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, costly engagement in the ongoing wars of Eastern Europe, and a foreign policy with its primary concerns seeming to be the expansion of abortion and LGBTQ rights abroad, the American people have tired of having a foreign policy imposed on them by a bunch of out of touch elites whose interests bear little resemblance to their own.

The Trump administration is turning its focus toward home—toward the interests and spirit of the American people. It’s going to be a sight to behold.

Arctic map: PeterHermesFurian / iStock / Getty Images Plus via Getty Images