Why does Donald Trump want to buy Greenland?
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‘We are not for sale and will never be for sale,’ Greenland prime minister says. President-elect Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. should buy Greenland since his first term in the White House. The island, with 56,000 inhabitants, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, and both the Danish government and local authorities have repeatedly said that the island is not for sale.
But that hasn’t deterred the president-elect. “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity,” he wrote on Truth Social last month as he announced his pick for ambassador, PayPal co-founder Kenneth Howery, to Denmark.
“We are not for sale and will never be for sale,” Greenland Prime Minister Mute Egede has said. Trump, meanwhile, argues that owning Greenland is a national security imperative. The U.S. does have a base on the island, Pituffik Space Base, and the island is in a strategically important location for missile defense and space surveillance missions, according to The Post. The base was constructed at the beginning of the Cold War.
In 2009, Greenland approved the Self-Government Act, leading to home rule, but defense and foreign policy matters are still up to Denmark. Former Danish foreign minister Martin Lidegaard told The Post in 2019 that “The Greenlandic people have their own rights.”.
