When President-elect Donald Trump talked about buying Greenland for the US he was following a protracted custom of US presidents musing about this concern.
In 1867 President Andrew Johnson considered attempting to purchase Greenland. So did President William Taft in 1910.
In the course of the Second World Conflict the US occupied Greenland to forestall anybody else from gaining access to it, and in 1946 President Harry Truman made Denmark one other supply for it.
From 2016 till 2019 the Trump administration did extra digging round on the thought and earlier than Mr Trump was defeated in 2020 there was a full-scale diplomatic row with Denmark over all of it.
The explanations for this curiosity will not be onerous to discern.
Any view of a map, significantly projected from the Arctic Circle, reveals how shut all of the Arctic nations are to one another in actuality. Then add to it the truth that the well-known – virtually legendary – Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific is starting to look for the primary time in human historical past as world warming opens up the ice throughout the North Pole.
That is an alarming symptom of local weather change however it’s however quickly to open a brand new and demanding trans-continental transport route into the North Atlantic from the Asian Pacific.
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Donald Trump Jr. visits Nuuk, Greenland. Pic: Reuters
Then there are the uncommon earth parts (REEs) which are tied up under Greenland’s snow and ice – a few of the biggest recognized reserves of Scandium, Yttrium, Dysprosium and Neodymium, amongst others, are to be present in Greenland.
It is the most important island on the planet however fewer than 60,000 folks stay there. Via their Danish citizenship, they’re all residents of the European Union as effectively.
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Might the US purchase Greenland as soon as Donald Trump returns to energy? Pic: AP
However there may be additionally a powerful want for independence from Denmark, although the Greenlanders want Copenhagen for a minimum of 50% of all they spend on well being and welfare.
So there could also be one thing in all this for the incoming Trump administration. To make a cope with the Greenlanders that economically underpins some new-found independence for them, however provides the US some particular financial and safety standing within the territory?
Denmark will not like that concept, however it might be firming up amongst a few of the extra opportunistic politicians in Greenland’s capital, Nuuk. It’s actually within the minds of a few of the extra opportunistic soon-to-be leaders in Washington DC.
