Note: As of January 21, Trump has stated that he will not use force against Greenland, but is still pushing for U.S. control over the island. This article was written before January 21, when the president was still weighing the idea of using force.
Take a look at Greenland, the landmass to the northeast of Canada. At a glance, it’s just another piece of land, owned and governed by the Kingdom of Denmark. Denmark is a small country in Europe, and a valued member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, commonly abbreviated as NATO. NATO is a large alliance consisting of most of the countries in Europe, the United States, and Canada, that was founded on April 4th, 1949, and has 32 total members as of January 2026. Every member of NATO supports one another, whether it’s for collective defense, political consultation, joint military exercises, or helping each-other with crisis management, and no NATO member has deliberately attacked another NATO member.
However, that could soon change as the White House made threats of military use to annex Greenland by force. These threats have been met with criticism both domestically and internationally. According to an article by Politico, several GOP lawmakers have denounced the idea of seizing Greenland, including Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), stating that the topic should be dropped entirely.
On the international scale, several European countries have denounced the idea by threatening to use force against the U.S. if Greenland is attacked, and also threatening to cut off access to the U.S. military bases in Europe. According to Fox News, Donald Trump is pushing the idea of a takeover while stating that Greenland would be unable to resist a US military operation, stating that their defense is “Two dog sleds.” Although it’s likely meant to be a humorous response to a question, the Danish military contains many armored vehicles and aircraft. These vehicles are mainly supplied by Germany and Sweden, and outclass their US counterparts in several fields. All of Denmark’s multirole combat aircraft are supplied by the United States.
According to the New York Times, the Royal Danish Military has deployed several warships to Greenland to maintain a defensive posture. However, they are not alone, as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom have also deployed small amounts of soldiers to defend the territory, under a variety of reasons without mentioning the threat that the U.S. poses.
These threats aren’t the first time Trump has threatened to annex Greenland. He made numerous comments regarding purchasing it in his 2024 presidential campaign, and continued pushing the idea after he was elected; he even sent Vice President JD Vance to the island to survey it and talk with political figures there.
Trump has stated that American ownership of Greenland is a matter of national security, claiming that the area around Greenland has become infested with Russian and Chinese warships, and poses a danger to the United States and other countries. While Russia and China have spent a considerable amount of time and money transporting military assets to the Arctic, there’s no available proof that they’re operating close to Greenland.
Other sources, such as TheConversation, have highlighted how Greenland is rich with several resources, such as lithium, graphite, oil, natural gas, diamonds, uranium, titanium, and tungsten, some of these resources have been imported to the U.S. from China and other countries, which is likely another reason behind U.S. interest in the island. Many of these resources are vital to the United State’s military’s ambitions for future weapons development, such as the uranium, tungsten, and oil that Greenland has an abundance of. Large areas of Greenland’s ground have been unexplored, meaning that there could be more resources or more unknown deposits of these valuable resources.
In January 2026, most NATO countries, including Denmark, launched a military exercise dubbed “Operation Arctic Endurance” as a way to display readiness to defend the island in the event that the United States takes action against Greenland. Trump then took to social media after this news became public.
“Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown. This is a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet,” Trump, in a TruthSocial post, said. In the rest of the post, he said that all of these countries would be subject to ten percent tariffs, and those tariffs would increase to 25% on June first, and would continue “until such time as a deal is reached for the complete and total purchase of Greenland.”
Many believe that this situation is not ideal, as it’s turning our allies against us, especially when we need them the most. This debate needs to end, the answer is obvious: We do not need Greenland. Although it sounds somewhat beneficial on paper, it’s not worth losing our closest friends over, and any action against an ally would soil our country’s reputation and ruin our chances of forming or keeping alliances with other countries if they knew what we did to our current allies. We can only hope this idea freezes alongside everything else in Greenland.
