What are the riches of Greenland that explain Trump’s interest in the island?

But in the case of Greenland, he went further: “We need Greenland for reasons of national security,” he said.

The island, the largest in the world, is an autonomous territory of Denmark, which colonized the region.

The Republican maintains that the European country should renounce its interference in the territory to, in his words, “protect the free world” and threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark if it does not give in to his demands, something that the Danish government rejects.

Trump’s plans for Greenland are not new. “It would be a great real estate deal,” he said in 2019, during his first term, when he first declared his interest in the island.

However, at the time he said acquiring the area was not his priority.

The then White House economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, explained in an interview in Fox News Sunday what the Trump government saw on the island.

It is “a strategic location” with “many valuable minerals,” Kudlow said.

Representatives of the American government even approached the Danes to try to close a deal, something that did not happen.

The number of mentions Trump makes of the issue now, as he forms his government to take office on January 20, suggests that Greenland has risen in importance in the Republican’s future plans.

Experts are betting this has to do with the recent mapping of Greenland’s mineral riches and the changing economic dynamics in relation to them.

Historically, the territory received attention from US authorities due to its strategic position.

First, as a way to contain the global advance of the Nazis during World War II. Then, during the Cold War, to control the sea routes between Europe and North America and due to its proximity to the Arctic.

The US military has operated Pituffik Space Base, formerly known as Thule Air Base, between the Atlantic and Arctic oceans for decades. The base is used as a ballistic missile observation post.

But a report published in mid-2023 by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland estimated that the 400,000 km2 of the island’s territory currently not covered by ice have moderate or high deposits of 38 minerals on the list of essential materials drawn up by the European Commission. .

In addition to apparent high concentrations of copper, graphite, niobium, titanium and rhodium, there would also be large deposits of the so-called rare earths, such as neodymium and praseodymium, whose peculiar magnetic characteristics make them essential in the manufacture of electric vehicle engines and turbines. of wind.

“Greenland could contain up to 25% of all the world’s rare earth element resources,” geologist Adam Simon, a professor at the University of Michigan, told BBC News Brazil.

This would be equivalent to around 1.5 million tonnes of materials.

Rare earth elements have become a sought-after good in a context of energy transition in search of clean and renewable forms of energy – to contain climate change – and have launched different global powers into disputes over large mines of these elements throughout the world. world.

“By 2024, we will use around 4,500% more rare earths worldwide than in 1960,” says Simon, continuing: “even if extraction in Greenland becomes viable in a short period of time, we will still need more reserves.” of rare earths to meet current market demand.

Currently, China dominates the rare earth mining and processing market. The Chinese are responsible for around a third of the known reserves, 60% of the extraction and 85% of the processing of these products.

But Chinese dominance over this market already reached 95% in 2010, giving Beijing significant political and economic power over central production chains in Europe and the US.

Currently, the two mining companies prospecting for rare earths in Greenland are Australian, but one of them has Shenghe Resources, a Chinese state mining company, as an investor.

China has been trying to deepen its presence in Greenland for years.

Xi Jinping defined that his country must be “close to the Arctic”, despite the fact that it is almost 1,500 kilometers from the region.

In addition to cultural and technological projects, Beijing has attempted to put down roots on the island through construction work in a plan dubbed the “Polar Silk Road,” an arm of Xi’s massive global investment project known as the Belt and Road. .

As part of this program, Chinese construction companies attempted to build at least two airports in Greenland, but ended up being relegated by Danish companies, in a dispute in which Washington would have exerted pressure in favor of Denmark.

All these Chinese movements in the area alarmed the US, which has China as its main global antagonist.

In its first term, the Trump administration included rare earths among the materials critical to American national security and signed cooperation agreements for technological and scientific development between Greenland and the United States.

The increased presence of scientists, researchers, politicians and military personnel in the region in recent years does not appear to be sufficient to guarantee any US exclusivity over the island’s natural resources, nor does the outgoing Biden administration appear to have pursued such an attempt.

12 days before leaving office, current Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Trump’s plans for Greenland “will not come to fruition” and that it would be a waste of time to discuss the matter.

If the interest in rare earths and Greenland was already clear in the first term, the fact that the direction of the Trump government is deeply influenced by billionaire Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, one of the largest electric car manufacturers in the world world, should not be ignored.

“Certainly, Tesla has an interest in the global availability of rare earths in addition to lithium, copper, nickel and graphite. Therefore, it is reasonable to think of a conflict of interest if the CEO of a company that depends on the availability of important mineral elements is in a political position of authority to make decisions that could affect the global availability of these minerals,” says Simon.

With the same caution, however, he also recommends caution in the limits of the immediate benefits for Musk, and for Trump himself, in the attack against Greenland.

“At the current stage of mineral exploration, it is highly unlikely that we will have miners capable of sustained commercial production in Greenland in less than 10 years,” Simon says.

“While governments operate with a 4-year horizon, these large mining companies plan their businesses with a 40-year horizon,” adds the geologist.

Although it is possible to greatly accelerate mining in areas of the island, a second challenge would be to transport production with large ships to a relatively remote region plagued by icebergs and other nautical challenges.

Therefore, it is unlikely that Trump can boast of mining rare earths on a Greenland scale, even if he overcomes the enormous geopolitical challenges involved in the task.

The key to understanding Trump’s motivation in this regard may lie in another historical element of American international policy: the doctrine of Manifest Destiny.

This was stated in 2019 by the editor of the right-wing magazine The American ConservativeJames P. Pinkerton

The notion of Manifest Destiny, articulated in the 19th century, asserted that, given its “exceptionalism,” the United States had the duty and right to advance into foreign territories to ensure the development and expansion of the experiment in freedom and self-government that the country defended.

This included securing resources to sustain the economy and ensure the country’s security.

Manifest Destiny was the ideology behind the expansion of Americans from the 13 colonies to the West, which, among other things, expelled much of the Native American populations from their lands, leading to the genocide of many of them.

The world order established after the Great Wars, with the creation of multilateral organizations to mediate disputes between nations (frequent targets of Trump’s criticism) and the establishment of clear borders between countries, seemed to have put an end to the territorial expansion advocated by Manifest Destiny.

One of the greatest examples of this movement was Andrew Jackson, the seventh American president, who ruled from 1829 to 1837. It is no mere coincidence that Trump declares that he has great admiration for Jackson.

In his first term, one of the Republican’s first changes in the Oval Office, the traditional office of American presidents, was to hang a painting of Jackson.

Now, for his second term, Trump appears to have reserved much more for Jackson than a spot on the wall.

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