When President Trump announced that the United States had reached an agreement with Denmark that would allow the United States to both protect the World’s largest island and control the development of its resources he made history in a big way. In effect Greenland would now be an American protectorate and managed from Washington.
The scale of this achievement can best be understood by comparing the size of President Trump’s acquisition and President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase which virtually doubled the size of the United States (United States before purchase: roughly ~890,000 sq. mi.; Louisiana Purchase: ~828,000 sq. mi.; United States afterward: roughly ~1.7 million sq. mi.).
Greenland is 836,000 square miles so it is slightly larger than Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase. Thus President Trump can now legitimately claim he is the president who added the most territory to American jurisdiction if not ownership.
As the largest island in the world (New Guinea, the second largest island is only 303,000 square miles) the sheer size of Greenland is massive. In fact if it were an independent country Greenland would be the 12th largest in the world and would be larger than Saudi Arabia or Mexico.
Of course much of Greenland is covered by Ice, some of it more than two miles thick. There are about 180,000 square miles along the coast which are ice free although snow covered at times in the winter.
The Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland has identified 1460 mineral resources and the work has only begun. The potential for development along the coast could alter a lot of the current calculations about who can control which important elements. President Trump’s step in getting an agreement to allow the United States to control mineral development will give the United States an enormous advantage in dealing with Communist China and other nations who had hoped to dominate the world mineral trade.
The acquisition of control over Greenland has another huge importance given the Russian and Chinese efforts to develop military capabilities in the Arctic. The Russians have made a major effort to be able to work in arctic conditions. If you look at a map of their 15,000 miles of arctic coastline you can see why it makes sense for them to have the only nuclear powered ice breakers (8 of them).
The United States has one heavy ice breaker but it is shared between an arctic assignment and an Antarctic assignment. The Chinese have a few smaller ice breakers but it is the Russians who dominate the ice breaker business today. The United States Coast Guard estimates it will ultimately need 4 to 5 heavy ice breakers and another 4 smaller ice breakers.
The acquisition of the authority to take all steps necessary to defend Greenland gives the United States both the legal ability and the geographic ability to project American power much more deeply into the Arctic.
Through his rough and tumble, inelegant confrontational style President Trump has set the stage for a significant American improvement in both economic and national security terms.
There may have been more traditionally diplomatic and less pugnacious ways to dream with our NATO ally Denmark but the last serious effort to acquire Greenland, by President Harry S Truman in 1946-47, was simply turned down by Denmark without any negative consequence.
The importance of Greenland to defending America from the Russians coming over the North Pole had been recognized the the Joint Chiefs in 1946. In fact they listed it as their number one priority.
Now, 80 years later, President Trump has completed the project President Truman started.
In the case of dealing with Denmark (from whom we had purchased the Danish West Indies in 1917 on our third try) President Trump was simply taking up a process of acquiring territory to expand the American defense zone.
You can disagree with some of President Trump’s tactics, with his confrontational style, with his threat to seize something if you won’t agree to a deal.
His style on Greenland undoubtedly both enraged and frightened the Europeans far beyond Copenhagen.
On the other hand you can’t deny that in the end, without firing a shot President Trump just became the most successful American President in expanding the country’s area of control. Even Thomas Jefferson would have been proud of him.
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