Key Points and Summary – President Trump’s renewed call to “take control” of Greenland is being dismissed by experts as a strategic “bluff” with no military rationale.
-The U.S. already enjoys full access to the vital Pituffik Space Base through a 70-year treaty with Denmark, meaning annexation would add “zero” to American defense capabilities.
Donald Trump. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
President Donald Trump plays golf in the Senior Club Championship at Trump National Golf Club Jupiter, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Jupiter, Florida. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
President Donald J. Trump makes an investment announcement, Monday, March 3, 2025, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley.)
-Furthermore, the author argues that subjecting Greenland to U.S. federal regulations would likely “impede” rather than secure access to critical rare earth minerals.
Trump and the Greenland Question
Recent calls by President Trump for the United States to take control of Greenland say more about his negotiating style than about America’s defense needs.
In fact, he is proposing to solve a problem that does not exist, and the utter lack of military or economic rationale strongly suggests this is a bluff rather than a blueprint. No compelling security case can be made for annexation when Washington already has the access that strategists fantasize about and rarely get.
The United States operates on the island through a treaty with Denmark. This treaty has functioned for more than seven decades and has endured Cold War tensions, post-Cold War neglect, and the recent return of Russian bomber patrols over the polar routes.
It has a functioning base, Pituffik, that ties missile warning and space surveillance to Arctic logistics, and those missions are enabled by radars, runways, fuel, and political consent, not deeds in a filing cabinet.
Simply put, and despite President Trump’s repeated statements to the contrary, the Pentagon does not need ownership of the territory to expand or modernize those capabilities, and buying the island would not add a single mile to the combat radius of an American aircraft or a single day to the endurance of a sensor already in place. Annexation would not improve NATO’s or NORAD’s collective defense architecture, and it would not make rare earths flow to market any faster, which is a function of geology, capital, and regulation. In fact, it would make things worse.
The existing alliance framework has already delivered the access continental defense demands, leaving annexation an option with no clear economic or military benefits and substantial costs.
America Already Has What It Needs in Greenland
The American stake in Greenland crystallized as the result of a deal made as the Cold War erupted. The United States sought sites to station missile-warning radars, space-surveillance facilities, and long-range aircraft along the polar routes from North America to Europe. Denmark agreed to host American forces and to do so without surrendering sovereignty or legal jurisdiction over the territory.
The result of that bargain was the Thule complex, recently renamed Pituffik, which continues to operate as a strategic pivot between North America and Europe.
Transatlantic security continues to rest on that arrangement. From the early Cold War to the present, the U.S. military footprint on Greenland has expanded in measured stages. In the 1950s, Washington constructed airfields, radar sites, fuel depots, and port facilities around Thule while operating under Danish sovereignty.
During the 1960s and 1970s, new generations of ballistic-missile early-warning radars were installed, and American personnel worked alongside Danish authorities to maintain the complex supply system that supported Strategic Air Command operations across the polar routes.
After 1991, the base was refocused on space surveillance and missile warning, as the United States exercised its right to modernize sensors and infrastructure through negotiated consent.
Since the treaty was updated in 2004, the US Space Force has added upgraded satellite tracking and communications nodes, and the Air Force has continued regular airlift missions linking Pituffik to Canada and the continental United States.
CF-18 Fighter from Canada.
Annexing Greenland in 1951 would not have changed any of this; annexing it now would be similarly pointless.
Critical Minerals
Trump has at times claimed that a US annexation of Greenland would help secure access to the territory’s rare earth elements and other critical minerals. That claim confuses the access that possession would confer with that which flows from permission.
The United States already has stable access to Greenland’s critical minerals through long-established commercial channels. Danish sovereignty has not been a barrier to access in the past; permits and capital have always flowed with Danish and Greenlandic consent.
The outright annexation of the island would not shorten distances to market, lower regulatory hurdles, or speed up processing of a single license granted under the existing legal framework.
Trump has suggested that ownership of rare earth deposits would enhance continental defense. But bringing the island under U.S. law would have the detrimental effect of turning any US mining projects in Greenland into domestic American projects, subjecting them to the U.S. legal and regulatory procedures. US courts and regulatory agencies would then have the power to block infrastructure projects, as they do in Alaska and Nevada. This would not enhance the security or reliability of the critical mineral supply chain.
Ownership would not shorten the distance from mine to processing plant, and it would not speed up the permits issued today by Greenlandic authorities. Denmark would still be in a position to govern the approval pipeline regardless of any border, and Indigenous communities would have additional standing to challenge investors in American courts.
For these reasons, submitting Greenland to U.S. legal and regulatory controls would impede access rather than enhance it, leaving supply chains thinner and adaptation harder. It certainly would not enhance the security of the United States or its self-proclaimed hemispheric sphere of influence.
Landing on Solid Ice
America’s Arctic security posture is built the way it builds most serious defenses: with structures of agreement and trust that outlive news cycles and with infrastructure that can be adapted if and when threats do arise. The existing arrangements the United States has with Denmark already provide reliable access to Pituffik and to the island’s tightly managed rare-earth deposits.
Annexation would not grant new access because access is already assured by consent. The island’s exports and the base’s operations function normally under Danish and Greenlandic control. Still, both governments have demonstrated a willingness to tailor the framework as the situation evolves. What matters for American and hemispheric security is the ability to modernize sensors, defend transit lanes, and integrate NORAD practice across the northern approaches. These are tangible policy levers that are exercised through partnership rather than possession.
About the Author: Military Expert Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.
