Why does Trump want to take control of Greenland? How his ‘remarkably stupid’ plan could unfold

President Donald Trump and administration officials have repeatedly threatened the “option” to seize Greenland by military force, alarming the island’s residents, members of Congress and European officials who fear the president’s imperial ambitions could blow up international accords and open the door for authoritarian regimes to make similar moves.

The president’s apparent pressure campaign appears designed to force Denmark into negotiations to sell the island or make a deal that lets the United States exploit its resources — which experts have compared to Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian aggression and Mafia-like extortion.

What would a U.S. invasion of Greenland even look like? International and military law scholars and Arctic policy experts speaking to The Independent agreed Trump’s idea is a “fantasy” and “remarkably stupid,” but the administration could try to coerce a “deal” at Greenland’s expense that avoids military intervention and NATO’s likely collapse.

“That reminds me of the famous line, ‘You got a real nice place here, it’d be a shame if anything happened to it,’” said Eugene Fidell, a senior research scholar at Yale Law School.

“What’s the street game, where you have to guess where the penny is? ‘Which one is the government’s position under?’ We don’t know,” he said. “And that’s an absurd situation.”

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‘Self-determination’ could push Denmark out of the picture

The combined Kingdom of Norway and Denmark colonized Greenland in 1721, and Denmark retained control of the island after the countries split in 1814. Nearly 100 years later, when the United States bought the Virgin Islands from Denmark, the U.S. government agreed to recognize Danish control of Greenland.

The treaty included a declaration that the United States would “not object to the Danish Government extending their political and economic interests to the whole of Greenland.”

The island — which has about 57,000 residents, nearly 90 per cent of whom are indigenous Inuit — conducts its own domestic and economic policy, while Denmark is responsible for its security and foreign policy.

The United States already has a Cold War-era military base on the island, which is considered part of the North American continent, and National Guard troops are stationed there for parts of the year.

In a visit to the island last year, Vice President JD Vance declared that “the people of Greenland are going to have self-determination,” adding that he hopes they “choose to partner with the United States, because we’re the only nation on Earth that will respect their sovereignty and respect their security.”

If an American influence campaign for Greenland’s independence is somehow successful, the United States could try to bring it under its control — though polls show a majority of Greenlanders oppose an American takeover.

The United States could try to bring it into a Compact of Free Association, which it currently has with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Those agreements give the U.S. military free rein in exchange for providing essential services.

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But a decades-old Cold War pact already gives the United States plenty of room to operate on the island, including permission to “construct, install, maintain, and operate” military bases, “house personnel” and “control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.”

“Everything that this current administration wants to do, they can already do it,” according to Romain Chuffart, managing director at the Washington, D.C.-based Arctic Institute think tank.

Trump — who has been fixated on Greenland’s occupation since his first term — has baselessly alleged that the territory is “covered” in Russian and Chinese ships while European officials say they’re nowhere near the island, which are rich in untapped natural resources, including rare earth materials.

The administration now appears to be trying to justify a potential occupation of Greenland for “national security” reasons, which Chuffart calls a “manufactured crisis.”

“What the U.S. is actually doing is acting like a rogue state,” he told The Independent. “There’s absolutely no military threat to the U.S. from Greenland, and no threats of Greenland even forming military alliances with Russia or China.”

Can Trump buy Greenland instead?

The Trump administration is “actively” discussing a plan to buy Greenland, according to White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.

How much would that cost? Where is the money coming from? Does Denmark have a price? Would the Trump administration just cut a check? Danish officials refuse to entertain the idea.

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In 1946, Denmark refused the Truman administration’s offer of $100m in gold, or nearly $2bn in 2026 dollars.

“I think the government of Greenland and the government of Denmark have been quite clear: Greenland is not for sale,” Chuffart told The Independent. “Those are fantasies. No one in Greenland or in Denmark is entertaining the possibility of such a deal.”

There also would be no legal basis for the United States to somehow acquire Greenland without the “sovereign and democratic will of the people of Greenland represented through its own government,” according to Chuffart. “And that in and of itself would be a violation of international law and also Greenlandic and Danish law altogether.”

“If I were the prime minister of Denmark,” said Yale’s Fidell, “I’d tell the United States to get lost.”

Europe would most likely try to push Denmark towards a deal with the Trump administration to “essentially hand over control in some way that is not entirely a capitulation,” according to Cornell University history professor David Sibley, who specializes in military history and defense policy.

“On a larger geostrategic point, it’s a remarkably stupid push by Trump,” he added. “The U.S. and Denmark already have defense treaties around Greenland that give the U.S. military access there. He’s going to blow up NATO to get something the U.S. essentially already has.”

A military invasion would be ‘catastrophic’

It would take no time at all for American forces to overwhelm Greenland.

There would likely be some “token resistance,” according to Fidell, but U.S. control of Greenland’s capital Nuuk would likely take hours or minutes.

The North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 5 clause obligates NATO allies to support the defense of other members. It has only been invoked once, in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, and by the United States.

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“The Kingdom of Denmark — including Greenland — is part of NATO,” the leaders of Denmark, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain said in a joint statement this week.

“Security in the Arctic must therefore be achieved collectively, in conjunction with NATO allies including the United States, by upholding the principles of the U.N. Charter, including sovereignty, territorial integrity and the inviolability of borders,” they added. “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

So what happens if Trump invades a member? The Constitution requires congressional approval for an act of war, and a Trump-led invasion against an American ally for imperial conquest has no majority support among lawmakers.

“It would be catastrophic,” according to Fidell. “It would empower dictators elsewhere to do the same thing. It would empower Putin … to take a look at the map and see if he’d like to take Spitsbergen from Norway, for example.”

The United States cannot legally seize territory by force, “and it’s also unlawful to acquire it through a direct threat of force,” according to Matthew Waxman, professor at Columbia Law School and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But trying to negotiate a sale while publicly dangling the threat of military occupation would be seen as coercion, “and that would severely destabilize the Atlantic alliance,” he told The Independent.