🌊 America’s Next Territory?

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When the Viking explorer Erik the Red arrived in Greenland in 985 AD, the ice-covered island was undesirable. So much so, in fact, that he had to give it a misleading name to attract settlers. 1,040 years later, it’s anything but.

Today Greenland offers security benefits plus a trove of precious natural resources. President Trump has vowed to buy or seize it, calling it American possession of the island an “absolute necessity.”

A deal may not be as far-fetched as it seems: Analyses show the US could make every person on the island a millionaire and still come out ahead.

So why does Trump want Greenland? And would Greenlanders take the offer?

Ancestors of today’s Inuits settled Greenland millennia ago. Norse settlers joined them in 985 AD, only to abandon the island in 1450 AD. Europeans returned some 300 years later, when the kingdom of Denmark-Norway claimed sovereignty over the island. By the early 19th century, Greenland became a formal colony of Denmark, and its indigenous people were drawn into a system that heavily restricted their autonomy.

Greenland remained that way for decades, until World War II: When Denmark fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, the United States occupied Greenland in order to protect it from Nazi invasion. America established a base there – and then refused to leave.

In November 1945, three months after the war’s end, a senator from Maine said that Greenland’s location made it “a military necessity,” offering “valuable bases from which to launch an air counteroffensive over the Arctic area in the event of attack.”

A year later, a group of the US’ highest-ranking military officials convened to discuss the matter. “Practically every member...said that our real objective as regards to Greenland should be to acquire it by purchase from Denmark,” a memo from the time read.

The logic was simple: ''The committee indicated that money is plentiful now, that Greenland is completely worthless to Denmark (and) that the control of Greenland is indispensable to the safety of the United States.”

Besides, only 600 Danes lived on Greenland.

“There are few people in Denmark who have any real interest in Greenland, economic, political or financial,’' American officials concluded.

They decided to make an offer: $100M and a chunk of Alaska in exchange for Greenland.

An American diplomat laid out America’s needs to a Danish official during a visit to New York in 1946. A sale of Greenland to the United States “would be the most clean-cut and satisfactory [solution],” the diplomat concluded.

The proposal “seemed to come as a shock to [the minister], but he did not reject my suggestions flatly and said that he would study a memorandum which I gave him,’' the diplomat noted. Denmark ended up rejecting the offer, though, for unclear reasons.

In the years since, Greenland has been upgraded from a mere colonial possession of Denmark to a self-governing territory. Since 2009, the island has had the right to declare independence – something its nationalist ruling party supports. Today, 90% of Greenland’s 56,000 people are Inuit, while most of the rest are Danish.

Given all of this, the question may be not whether Denmark is willing to part with Greenland, but whether Greenlanders would accept an offer to join the US. What if they were offered $100,000 each? $500,000? $1,000,000?

Here’s what the US wants and how a deal could make every Greenlander a millionaire.

Editor’s Note

We’ll be back in a few days with our story about the Panama Canal, its significance, and why Trump’s threats to take it back may not be empty. In the meantime, thank you for all your feedback about the Romanian election piece. Many of you found that situation shocking, as did we. And for those who missed it, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht. Here’s our deep dive on why.

Max F is writing this from New Mexico, where he’s reporting from the border. That report will be here soon. For now, have a great weekend. And go Bills!

–Max and Max

RocaNews co-founders