Category: Greenland
From Outrage to Agreement: Trump’s Greenland Gambit
Last week this column chastised President Trump for demanding ownership of Greenland and for threatening tariffs on any nation —…
What’s Greenland to us?
The late, great Angelo Codevilla had a way of cutting through the fog of foreign policy.
In the Claremont Review of Books in 2019, he asked, “What’s Russia to us?” He didn’t ask because he had any special admiration for Russia. He asked because Washington had turned Russia into a utility: a convenient villain that justified budgets, scolded dissent, and kept the governing class in charge. Codevilla’s point was simple but brutal. Strategy begins with interests. Interests require discrimination. Most of what passes for “grand strategy” amounts to habit and vanity.
Greenland touches national defense. Greenland touches Arctic geography. Greenland touches the supply chain for advanced systems. Those facts don’t bend around Davos etiquette.
That question — his question — fits the Greenland uproar better than any of the Davos hand-wringing last week.
European leaders want this story to be about Trump’s manners and apparent recklessness. They want it to be about “norms,” about “tone,” about the precious feelings of the alliance. They want Americans to believe the true scandal lies in a U.S. president speaking too plainly or belligerently.
Trump did speak plainly. In Davos on Wednesday, he pushed for “immediate negotiations” to acquire Greenland and ruled out the use of military force. He also floated a “framework” tied to Arctic security after meeting NATO’s secretary general, while walking back tariff threats that had rattled allies and markets.
Fine. Trump being Trump shouldn’t surprise anyone.
But Europe’s reaction should surprise people, because it revealed how unserious the continent has become — even about something as serious as Greenland.
Instead of handling business like adults — hard bargaining among allies over a piece of real estate that actually matters — European capitals staged indignation, offered lectures, and then produced the usual substitute for seriousness: a symbolic “show of force” meant for domestic consumption.
The numbers tell the laughable story. Sweden sent three officers. Norway sent two. Finland sent two liaison officers. The Netherlands sent one naval officer. The U.K. sent one officer. France sent around 15 mountain specialists. Germany sent a reconnaissance team of 13. Denmark led with about 100 troops. Reuters called it “modest.” That word was kind.
But that’s the European governing class in a nutshell for you: Perform alarm, then perform resolve, then declare victory over a crisis they helped manufacture.
All of this theater tried to sell one idea: Greenland needs protection from the United States.
Preposterous.
Greenland matters because it helps defend the United States. Pituffik Space Base — some Americans may still know it as Thule — sits where U.S. forces can track threats coming over the pole. The Arctic doesn’t care about European speeches. Missiles don’t fly around Greenland out of respect for allied etiquette. Geography dictates capability, and Greenland sits where the map says it sits.
RELATED: Pressed on Greenland, Trump tells Davos the US has weapons he ‘can’t even talk about’
Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images
Europe’s commissioners understand that. They just hate saying it out loud because it reminds them of the arrangement they prefer to obscure: America provides the real security; Europe provides the indignant boo-hoo commentary.
The Greenland tantrum exposed another reality that should make America’s sensible policy planners sweat, assuming they still exist: The industrial foundations of power have become strategic again, and the West has behaved like an empire that forgot how to build.
Rare-earths sound like an investor pitch until you remember where they go. Modern weapons systems and advanced electronics depend on them. We need minerals you have likely never heard of — neodymium, dysprosium, samarium, and yttrium — to keep our F-35s flying and our missiles precision-guided.
But the supply chain runs through the part nobody wants to talk about: processing and refining. China dominates that bottleneck — especially the heavy rare-earth elements that sit in the highest-end systems. One major estimate put China’s share of global heavy rare-earth processing at more than 90%. That’s a massive national security hole.
Greenland matters because it offers a way out — not a magic wand, but an exit. Greenland holds serious mineral potential. That potential shifts the long-term strategic balance only if development happens.
Greenland’s own politics have made development tricky. In 2021, Greenland reinstated a uranium ban that effectively froze the Kvanefjeld project, one of the world’s most significant rare-earth deposits, because uranium appears alongside rare-earth ore and triggers the political and regulatory trip wires that make major mining projects difficult to sustain.
Greenland’s voters have every right to weigh environmental costs. Strategy still counts consequences. But the practical result of the ban didn’t restrain Beijing. It protected Beijing’s advantage.
The Europeans, of course, love a green virtue-signal that imposes no serious cost on Europe. Through it all, however, the continent remains dependent on America’s military might, dependent on Chinese processing, and increasingly dependent on slogans to conceal both.
So yes — Trump’s aggressive posture creates complications. Acquisition talk puts Denmark in a public box and turns what should be an alliance negotiation into a freak show. It hands European leaders a stage they don’t deserve and an excuse to treat American interests as a moral problem.
RELATED: Trump announces ‘framework’ of ‘great’ deal with NATO on Greenland
Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images
But Europe’s leaders made fools of themselves by trying to address a strategic reality through choreography. A reconnaissance team, a few liaison officers, and a weekend of headlines don’t secure Greenland against anyone. Their “show of force” invited contempt, not respect.
Codevilla’s 2019 essay mocked the way our establishment inflates foreign threats to discipline the home front. The Greenland episode shows a mirror image: European elites inflating a U.S. negotiating push into a crisis because they can’t handle an America that talks like a serious country.
Greenland touches our national defense. Greenland touches Arctic geography. Greenland touches the supply chain for advanced systems. Those facts don’t bend around Davos etiquette.
So use Codevilla’s test. Strip away the moral fog. Rank interests and act like the answers matter.
What’s Greenland to us?
A hell of a lot.
In Greenland, Trump’s Tariff Logic Falls Apart
What constitutes a “national emergency”? It’s a question at the heart of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on tariffs and…
Pressed on Greenland, Trump tells Davos the US has weapons he ‘can’t even talk about’
President Donald Trump is dropping more hints about the technology used to capture Venezuela’s former communist leader Nicolas Maduro.
During his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the president discussed his thoughts on Greenland as a strategic military location against China and Russia.
After saying how “stupid” the United States was to give the territory back to Denmark after World War II, Trump said the world is in greater danger with Greenland exposed.
‘They weren’t able to fire one shot at us.’
“Now our country and the world face much greater risks than it did ever before because of missiles, because of nuclear, because of weapons of warfare that I can’t even talk about,” Trump began. He then started discussing the weapons used in the capture of Maduro.
“Two weeks ago, they saw weapons that nobody ever heard of. They weren’t able to fire one shot at us. They said, ‘What happened?’ Everything was discombobulated. They said, ‘We’ve got them in our sights. Press the trigger.’ And nothing happened,” he told his fellow world leaders.
The president added that Venezuelan defense forces could not fire any anti-aircraft missiles, saying there was “one that went up about 30 feet and crashed down right next to the people that sent it.”
“They said, ‘What the hell is going on?'” the president added.
Much speculation has been given to the types of advanced technology U.S. forces used in Operation Absolute Resolve, including directed-energy weapons.
One of Maduro’s security guards described American troops as shooting with “such precision and speed; it felt like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute.”
The security guard described the Americans launching a “sonic weapon or whatever it was,” which was like a “very intense sound wave,” and he “felt like” his head “was exploding from the inside.”
“We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood,” he recalled.
RELATED: Did Trump use the ‘Havana syndrome’ weapon on Venezuela?
As for the unresponsive defense systems Trump described as “made by Russia and by China,” reports have claimed that telecommunications towers were among the first targets destroyed by American forces. A Russian-made surface-to-air missile system was also destroyed in airstrikes, others reported.
“So they’re going to go back to the drawing boards,” Trump remarked.
Much of what the United States has revealed about its weapons systems is already advanced, such as helmet technology that provides a sort of X-ray vision, supported by an interconnected drone and communications network, as well as anti-drone energy weapons.
Trump was eager to explain America’s need to acquire Greenland due to it being an “undefended” and “key strategic location” between the United States, Russia, and China.
“We need it for strategic national security and international security,” Trump said as the room remained dead silent.
The president also dismissed notions that the real reason to take Greenland was to acquire rare-earth minerals, saying the real rarity lies with processing and that Greenland’s minerals are buried deep under ice.
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GREENER PASTURES: Trump Says He and NATO Have ‘Formed the Framework of a Deal’ on Greenland
A tariff threat is off the table — for now.
GREENER PASTURES: Trump Says He and NATO Have ‘Formed the Framework of a Deal’ on Greenland
A tariff threat is off the table — for now.
‘A piece of ice for world protection’: Trump rules out military intervention in Greenland
Europeans breathed a sigh of relief after President Donald Trump ruled out using military intervention to acquire Greenland.
Trump took another victory lap Wednesday during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, recapping all the successes of the first year of his second term. During these remarks, Trump clarified that he would not send boots on the ground in the “piece of ice” known as Greenland.
‘I don’t have to use force.’
“We want a piece of ice for world protection, and they won’t give it,” Trump said. “We’ve never asked for anything else.”
“They have a choice,” Trump added. “You can say yes, and we will be very appreciative, or you can say no, and we will remember.”
RELATED: Trump cites Nobel Peace Prize snub in latest push for Greenland takeover
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Trump followed his ominous statement with a reassuring one, remarking for the first time publicly that the United States will not forcefully take Greenland.
“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump said.
RELATED: ‘Make America Go Away’: Protests erupt in Greenland after Trump threatens tariffs on Europe
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images
“That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force. I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force.”
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F-BOMBS AWAY: Euro MP Melts Down Over Trump’s Greenland Push, Gets Cut Off [WATCH]
![F-BOMBS AWAY: Euro MP Melts Down Over Trump’s Greenland Push, Gets Cut Off [WATCH]](https://hannity.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Dane-300x167.png "Dane")
A Danish lawmaker got slapped with a reprimand after shockingly telling President Trump to “f–k off” as the U.
‘NOW IT IS TIME!’: Trump Blasts Denmark for Failing to Contain Russian Threat — Says ‘It Will Be Done!!!’
In a Sunday night TRUTH Social post, President Donald Trump claimed Denmark has failed to deal with what he called the “Russian threat” near Greenland — and declared the time for action has arrived.
NORAD: Aircraft will soon arrive in Greenland for ‘long-planned,’ ‘routine’ military activities
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) aircraft will soon be in Greenland for “long-planned” activities, even as President Trump pushes for U.S. control of the Arctic territory. Along with aircraft operating from bases in the U.S. and Canada, NORAD aircraft at Pituffik Space Base, Greenland, will “support various long-planned NORAD activities, building on the enduring…
