How Far Will Trump Go to Get Greenland?

Over the weekend, President Trump got a message. It was about Greenland. Trump received a text message from the Prime Minister of Norway saying, let's hold on, you know, let's have a chat and talk this through ostensibly. That's our colleague Max Colchester, who's been following the story. And Trump replies with this amazing message, essentially saying that because uh he was snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee, he's no longer committed to the pursuit of peace.

And that he should take control of Greenland. On Monday, the exchange went public. It was just one example of a European leader scrambling to deal with Trump's renewed push to control Greenland, which is part of Denmark. And it raised the question of whether the US would turn to military force to help him get it, especially after comments the president made earlier this month.

We're not gonna have Russia or China occupy Greenland and that's what they're gonna do if we don't. So we're gonna be doing something with Greenland either the nice way or the more difficult. We've seen a significant escalation in the rhetoric around Greenland. We've seen him come out and say, America needs Greenland for national security reasons. And anyone who stands in my way of getting it will be punished.

Now, Europe is wondering if the US is turning from a steadfast ally into an urgent threat. This is potentially a huge deal, which could see a reshaping of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and America. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, January twentieth. Coming up on the show, the diplomatic rupture between the US and Europe over Greenland.

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President Trump has had his eye on Greenland since his first term. And since getting re-elected, he's put the issue front and center. At first, Expressed interest in buying the island. Denmark, which controls Greenland, said it wasn't for sale. Here's Danish Prime Minister Meta Frederickson. Greenland is today a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It's a part of our territory. And it's not for sale. European Union leaders stood behind Denmark. And for a while, that was that.

Then, early this month, Trump made a big geopolitical move that stunned the world. The U.S. captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, and that signaled he was serious about a new era of foreign policy. But it was in the wake of that action in Venezuela that everyone said, Well

you know, if you're willing to take that kind of action in Venezuela, what would you do about Greenland? And he then came back and said, Well actually, yeah, we need Greenland. And so now suddenly this was a a US leader who was willing to take those kinds of risks. Trump frames the argument for US control of Greenland as an issue of national security. The island is a potentially rich source of rare earth minerals, which are crucial for everything from magnets to chips to defense systems.

Trump also points to increased Russian military presence in the Arctic and says that the region will be at the center of the next global power struggle. Look, we have to have it. They have to have this done. They can't protect it. Denmark, they're wonderful people. And I know the leaders they're very good people, but they they don't even go there.

what Trump was saying, and his argument for controlling Greenland is that essentially the EU and Denmark in particular doesn't have the financial muscle to actually defend uh Greenland or protect the Arctic. So that's the premise of this.

Then, on January fifteenth, the EU sent a contingent of troops to Greenland. The idea, according to Max's reporting, was to show Trump that they were willing and able to defend the region. Troops arriving in Greenland. The Danish military just posting these images that we're showing you of troops arriving in Greenland looks like It wasn't a very big contingent, it was a few dozen soldiers from a handful of European countries.

And they arrived and the way some European officials now see it is that Trump saw that not as a show of strength by Europe, but as a sort of an antagonistic move by Europe to basically tell him to back off. Just to be clear, so the EU from their perspective, they were sending a small contingent of troops to Greenland to say, Hey, look, we can protect this territory. And now they're feeling like Trump saw that move as an aggressive

Step by the EU. Yeah, exactly. This is a bunch of European countries trying to flex their muscles and that actually Trump took this as a slight as opposed to a reassurance. And so what did Trump do in response? So Trump's response was to come out on Treat Social and threaten the contingent of around seven European countries that sent those troops with ten percent tariffs by february first, if they continued to stand in his way and stop

him purchasing Greenland. And they said that he would escalate that to twenty five percent if they didn't basically relinquish and allow him to buy Greenland and that this would stay in place until a deal was done. European leaders tried to avoid escalating the situation further. On Sunday, the Prime Minister of Norway sent that message to Trump, expressing his opposition to the tariffs and trying to convince the president to talk it over.

French President Emmanuel Macron messaged Trump as well, saying, quote, My friend, we are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran. I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland. But Trump didn't back down. And now Europe is considering retaliating. The EU does have a tool called the anti-coercion instrument or the bazooka, as they call it, whereby they can impose pretty stringent export and import restrictions on a country that tries to economically blackmail

They could restrict certain products they export to the US. They could make it harder for US tech firms to operate here by tightening regulation. They could impose tariffs on certain US products. They could also restrict access to the financial markets here for US firms, which again would would be problematic for them. So they have tools to inflict economic pain on US based businesses. How big a deal would that be for the US and how risky for Europe? It would be very risky for for Europe.

Um, because obviously the US could respond. Uhhuh. And we've seen with Trump he tends to escalate when faced with aggression. So you know, it's it's something that has to be calibrated very carefully and I think it's something that would take a while to deploy and actually quite a lot of the EU members would probably lobby against extremely stringent measures, fearing

Blow back on their own economies. So it's not a silver bullet. But you know, in the face of some provocation, they're gonna have to do So If those tariffs that Trump is threatening on February first come into play, they can't just sit back and swallow them. So there is increasing pressure on European leaders to to reflect that public anger at this move on Greenland. So they will come under pressure to actually bare teeth against the US.

Trump maintains that the U.S. has a lot to gain from controlling Greenland, from securing the Arctic to mining rare earth minerals. But is all the geopolitical turmoil worth it? Max went to Greenland to find out. That's next. Say you've always wanted to sneak away for a last-minute long weekend in Napa. Here's the thing: if you get smart with your money, you could do things like that.

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You were just in Greenland on a reporting trip. Can you set the scene? Where were you? What was it like on the ground? Yeah. So I flew to Nuke, which is the capital of Greenland, which is on the western coast. And I think it's hard really to get a sense across really how big Greenland is and how empty it is. I mean when you fly over Greenland from Europe at least.

It's massive and it it looks like the moon. It's this frozen huge frozen expanse. It's it's really s it's nearly like sci fi, uh, when you approach Nuke. And this is a country which is slightly bigger than Mexico. It is eighty percent ice. Uh it has a very tiny population of around fifty seven thousand people who who live mainly on the coast, uh southwestern coast,'cause the rest is ice.

There's less than a hundred miles of paved road in Greenland. So this is a very like sparsely populated and for a large part inhospitable place. And so what does its economy look like? It's a very small one. The workforce is twenty-nine thousand people, which is the size of a tiny town. Biggest export is shrimp, haliput, and cod. Uh ninety eight percent of Greenlandic exports are fish or fishing produce. It's just very small. And efforts to try and build out minds.

in Greenland have haven't really come to much. Because you know you've got to go into the middle of some icy tundra, dig a hole, build a road to it, build housing for your workers, build a port, maybe build a runway. It's incredibly expensive, and then it's Such bad weather for a chunk of the year you can't even access it. So it's not a place that's you just turn up and

It's w waiting to go. Right. It sounds like it would take a lot to get those resources out of there. Exactly. When you get there you realise that although it's been painted as this potential Eldorado for minerals and whatnot, when you get there you realize people basically live off fishing and Danish subsidies. And it's not a gold mine in that sense. It's it's more of a money pit. In fact, the Danish government spends about a billion dollars a year subsidizing Greenland.

They provide the Greenlandic government with a what's called a grant every year to help pay for for education and whatnot. They also cover healthcare for the Greenlandic people and they pay for the defence agreement. So it's quite an expensive tab for the Danish government to pick up every year. And has Trump said anything about replacing that if the US takes over Greenland? No, it's not really something he's addressed. And it is this huge welfare state that he would be inheriting.

that would receive, you know, federal in federal funding wise it would receive way more per capita than say Alaska or Washington DC does. So it would it would be a um to start with at least it would be a huge drain on the federal purse to own and run Greenland. As for what Greenlanders think, polls show that a large majority of them have no interest in becoming an American territory.

Over the weekend, anti-US protests took place in Nuuk and Copenhagen, with people wearing hats that said, Make America go away, and chanting Greenland in their native language. Yeah! While you were there, you had a chance to talk to some locals. Uh what did they tell you? I think many people feel that they actually they've they've come to an accommodation with Denmark which works for them and they're wary of just throwing it all up in the air.

And of course America has a bad record in dealing with indigenous people and they know that. So I think the idea of letting in a load of mining prospectors from America in return for cash is is a model they've seen has not worked for others uh in the past. So I think they're wary. But Mac says some Greenlanders might be open to hearing Trump out before making up their minds.

and I bumped into a fellow who was walking his dog and started chatting to him and he invited me into his office and he works at a um a shrimp trawler company. And we started chatting and I said, Oh, well, what do you think? Do you think you'd like to be part of America? He said, No, no, no, absolutely not. But then the more we we chatted, the more he said, Well, actually

I'd be interested to see what Trump is offering. Uh w what's the deal. And I found that interesting because it's you know, I know a lot of Greenlanders say they don't want to become American, but I think it would be very interesting to see what happens if Trump did put an offer on the table.

That sort of brings us to this week where maybe awkwardly a lot of the people involved in this dispute are coming together in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. What can we expect from leaders this week at Davos? I don't know. I I I just think what we've seen in the last twenty four hours has been so kind of crazy. I mean, you saw these uh private texts between leaders and Trump.

For based on those texts it seems like the the leaders wanna have a talk with him and and Try and work out a solution without escalating. Yeah, I mean the theme at Davos is the spirit of dialogue. So maybe well good luck with that. Yeah, exactly. It sounds like a good theme. Um yeah, I mean I I think that's what they'll be hoping. Dialogue. And I look I think they're hoping they can apply the Ukraine playbook to Trump, which is that you know, he comes out

sends everybody into a tears and then they sit they all rush over to Washington and chat to him and then he actually he he kind of kicks the can a bit down the road and and they walk him back from the cliff a bit. And so I suspect that's what they'll try to do. But I mean longer term If what everybody suspects is the case, which is that he just wants Greenland because he wants Greenland, then it's not clear what they can do to stop him.

Because promising extra investment in Greenland or promising extra troops in Greenland isn't gonna cut it if he just really just wants to own Greenland. Ultimately, what does this moment mean for the alliance between the US and Europe? Well with Trump you it's just so difficult because you get these moments which it just seems like everything's gonna fall apart and you know he creates this chaos and and often people say it's on purpose. But yeah, I mean if he goes through with this, then it is

existential for the for the alliance. If he does seek to use economic pressure to coerce Denmark into giving up Greenland, then I think it is it's gonna sharpen a lot of minds in Europe. And and I think we're already seeing

a slight change in tact. There's a there's a hardening in the rhetoric towards Trump. The the the previous tactic of promising him huge investments and and basically playing along with his charade I think will stop and they'll have to just essentially tell him some hard truths which may result in economic pain being inflicted on Europe.

As of today, leaders from around the world have spoken publicly about the Greenland issue. The president of the European Commission, Ursula Vanderleen, has said Greenland's sovereignty is, quote, non-negotiable. Russia's foreign minister compared Trump's push for Greenland with Moscow's annexation of Crimea, while the Canadian Prime Minister called it a break in the rules-based international order. Still, some European leaders are hopeful that there's room for progress during the Davos Forum.

Finland's leader went as far as saying he believes it might be possible to defuse the Greenland tension by the end of the year. That's all for today, Tuesday, January 20th. The journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday after. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.