Thanks to President Donald Trump, Greenland is in the geopolitical cross hairs. His latest real estate fixation has alienated allies and pleased those benefiting from NATO chaos. It’s manifestly not what America should be fostering, but in the narcissistic world of Trump, it’s about what it has always been about: ego-driven, artless deal-making and Donsense branding. Only this isn’t about stiffing leverage-challenged subcontrators or playing the bankruptcy card. He’s playing the hand dealt to the one in charge, the one who happens to be the worst-case iteration of Roy Cohn.
Greenland is of legitimate interest. It has been looked at through a strategic lens before. During the Cold War, the U.S., under an agreement with Denmark, turned Greenland into a military asset. The U.S. even offered to purchase Greenland in 1946. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, most U.S. military installations were closed.
Today’s geopolitical reality includes security concerns over Arctic competition with Russia and China over natural resources and shipping lanes. It’s a legitimate issue, but one that can be addressed collectively by the U.S. and its 31 NATO allies. This, however, is counter-intuitive to Trump, who’s never played well with others unless they’re bearing gifts.
Greenland, the world’s largest island, has been evolving along with melting ice. But Trump the unilateralist isn’t about prioritizing mutual security, the lodestar of NATO, or working with allies. It’s about owning the world’s largest island.
He even admitted in a recent White House gaggle that it was “psychologically important to me.” Fiona Hill, a senior director for Russian and European affairs in the first Trump Administration, summed it up all too accurately. “He wants the greatest land deal in history—that’s the context,” she underscored.
Trump recently posted an altered image on social media showing a map of the United States that included Venezuela, Cuba, Canada and Greenland. It’s all part of his “branding” instinct—as if he were presiding over the U.S. Organization. Maybe he envisions a Trump Tower Nuuk.