By Matthew Ehret
With the January 3 kidnapping of Maduro and renewed US strategic controls over Venezuela, it appears only a matter of time before the USA gains control over the vast territory of Greenland.
Whether or not this is a net positive or negative for humanity, we must accept the fact that Donald Trump’s relentless calls for the acquisition of Greenland (either by military force or through purchase) are not mere rhetoric, as many have hitherto believed, but signal a very serious agenda to profoundly alter the map of the global Great Game for generations to come.
The reasons WHY Trump would want full control over this underpopulated northern land (and its fellow satellite pseudo nation of Canada) should be clear to all. The fact is that in the 21st century, the Arctic is quickly becoming a major strategic battleground, and whoever can secure economic and military controls over this domain will enjoy a vast advantage in shaping the emerging new order for generations to come.
And why shouldn’t it? After all, the Arctic represents one of the most strategic — unexplored and underpopulated — regions of the earth with vast quantities of resources ranging from oil and gas to uranium, rare earths, iron, lead, copper, zinc, and diamonds. In Greenland alone, it is estimated that three of the world’s largest rare earth deposits sit under mountainous ice waiting to be mined.
A recent US Geological Survey estimates that hydrocarbons equivalent to 31 billion barrels of oil sit under Greenland’s soil. Additionally, only one-fifth of Greenland’s surface area is ice free, meaning the actual bounty of resources is likely much larger than current estimates.
Why Denmark Cannot Morally (or Militarily) Defend its Position
Perhaps if the Kingdom of Denmark had made more of an effort to develop those resources and expand the extremely small population of Greenland over the past several decades, a stronger case could be made for the Kingdom’s right to control its autonomous province. But Denmark’s neglect and abuses of its population have resulted in a different reality, with a deep resentment built up between Greenlanders and their overseers in Copenhagen.
Pipaluk Lynge, Chair of Greenland’s Foreign and Security Policy Committee, recently expressed her frustration with Denmarks’ efforts to block her and other Greenland politicians from participating in official talks with US representatives, which shape the future of the autonomous province, saying: “We are adults in Greenland. We have a parliament. We have ministers. We don’t have to hold hands with Danish ministers when talking to other countries.”
While not supportive of US annexation, Juno Berthelsen (the head of Greenland’s nationalist party) has stated that America’s interest in developing Greenland’s resources and real economy represent the best chance in history to break free of the welfare state model, which has kept Greenland’s people underdeveloped and dependent on handouts from Copenhagen.
A History of Lost Potential and Abuse
Since being removed from “Colonial Status” in 1953 (whereby the largely Inuit population was granted citizenship for the first time), Greenland’s population grew quickly from 22,000 in 1953 to 40,000 in 1965. This vast increase of population was made possible by significant early Cold War investments into the real economy. However, during the sixty years after 1965, the population only increased to 57,792 today. One may ask why the economic growth largely halted? It was revealed in 2022 that an insidious eugenics programs was imposed onto the female population of Greenland in the form of a coercive sterilization program that resulted in 4500 girls — some as young as the age of 12 — being fitted with IUDs against their consent. This was half the fertile population (mostly of Inuit descent). Within one generation, the birthrate fell by 50%.
These statistics feature a striking parallel to the abused First nations of Canada, which have suffered similar eugenics programs during the same time frame (overseen by Ottawa on behalf of the British Crown).
The anti-development ideologies, imposed onto the Natives of Greenland and Canada, have resulted in similar cultural disorders such as the world’s highest suicide rates (with 72.3 suicides per 100 thousand in Canadian Inuit communities, and 80 per 100 thousand in Greenland Inuit communities). Keep in mind, the global average is 9 suicides per 100 thousand.
Due to the lack of any economic prospects, Native Populations in both Canada and Greenland have been trapped in endless cycles of alcoholism, domestic violence and sexual abuse, which are among the highest in the developed world. Additionally, just as Greenland Inuit suffered forced migrations during the Cold War for geopolitical purposes, traumatic scars can still be felt after the Canadian government’s 1953–1955 “High Arctic Reallocation Project” forcibly removed dozens of natives from urban centers and “restored them to their natural habitats” in the high arctic territories of Nunavut as part of a “human flagpole” policy during the Cold War.
Added to the forced migration of Greenland natives and a sixty year policy of forced zero-technological growth imposed by the European Union, the resentment felt by the population of Greenland towards their Danish handlers is visceral, and the warnings by Greenland politicians expressing openness to work with the USA should be heeded with great seriousness.
But the incentives for US control over Greenland don’t end with resource development.
Military Supremacy, NATO, and Golden Domes
In Trump’s many comments relating to the US acquisition of Greenland, “national security” is always invoked. But national security against who?
If we take Trump at his word, one would believe that Russia and China have ambitions to take over the vast island both as part of the Polar Silk Road strategy unveiled by China in 2019 and as part of a military ambition to use Greenland as a forward base for potential strikes against the USA and its allies. In response to this supposed threat, Trump has loudly promoted the creation of The Golden Dome in both Greenland and Canada.
In his 2026 Davos speech, Trump said:
“All we want from Denmark for national and international security and to keep our very energetic and dangerous potential enemies at bay is this land on which we’re going to build the greatest Golden Dome ever built. We’re building the Golden Dome that just by its very nature is going to be defending Canada.”
The Golden Dome was first made public in February 2025 and was modelled on the Israeli Iron Dome. Trump has described this as the ideal system to be built up across Greenland’s northern jurisdiction accompanying a space-based anti-ballistic defensive system, which would presumably be managed by America’s Pituffik Space Force Base located in Greenland’s high arctic just a few hundred miles from the North Pole.
With the US–Russia START Treaty set to expire in February 2026, the accelerated Golden Dome around North America and Greenland, along with potential weapons controlled by America’s Space Force, represent an existential threat for both Russia and China (and also for those citizens living in Greenland who may soon find themselves targets of a nuclear retaliation in the event of a future war).
The chaos felt amongst NATO member states in the face of this potential takeover is striking. France, Germany and UK leaders quickly scrambled to respond to Trump’s plan in early January 2026 by promoting a “Multinational NATO Arctic Force,” which may or may not be part of a possible deal with the Americans. Meanwhile, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has explicitly said what everyone was thinking: “If the United States were to choose to attack another NATO country, then everything would come to an end. The international community as we know it, democratic rules of the game, NATO, the world’s strongest defensive alliance — all of that would collapse.”
Thus, we can only wonder if Trump’s strategy is designed to replace NATO with a new war-making mechanism for the 21st century or is part of a plan to revitalize and upgrade NATO itself?
If the plan is to dismantle NATO (as Denmark’s Prime Minister warned), then might Trump’s plan be a part of the creation of a new European military force that will see European states re-arm themselves under new management and a new autonomous war-paradigm without being carried by the USA, as “big Daddy” had done for so many decades? Certainly propaganda for a “European Army” bolstered by a new military industrial war agenda has accelerated over the past year, indicating a possible shift towards a post-NATO anti-Russian military alliance of Europe.
Or is it possible, as Alex Krainer has speculated, that Trump’s program to acquire Greenland has more to do with a secret agreement reached with leading members of the Russian intelligentsia who wish to create a US-Russian alliance to break apart the City of London’s controls over the global Great Game?
Certainly, the favorable attitude expressed by Vladimir Putin and Sergey Lavrov towards the possibility indicates that this cannot be entirely discounted from the realm of possibilities.
Originally published on Pluralia
Bio: I am the editor-in-chief of The Canadian Patriot Review, Senior Fellow of the American University in Moscow and Director of the Rising Tide Foundation. I’ve written the four volume Untold History of Canada series, four volume Clash of the Two Americas series, the Revenge of the Mystery Cult Trilogy and Science Unshackled: Restoring Causality to a World in Chaos. I am also co-host of the weekly Breaking History on Badlands Media and host of Pluralia Dialogos (which airs every second Sunday at 11am ET here).
