Trump is talking about Greenland again

2025 is ending much as it began: with President Donald Trump talking about annexing Greenland. Trump is talking about Greenland again The fixation on Greenland once looked eccentric. Now, it seems like the distillation of his whole foreign policy. Joshua Keating is a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He is the author of the 2018 book an exploration of border conflicts, unrecognized countries, and changes to the world map. Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood , On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry as a special envoy to Greenland with the goal, as Landry put it, “to make Greenland a part of the US.” Though the territory has been moving gradually toward greater independence, Greenland has been under Danish rule since the 18th century. “We need Greenland for national protection,” Trump told reporters on Monday. The move provoked a sharp response from the prime ministers of Denmark and Greenland, who said in a joint statement : “National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law. ... You cannot annex other countries.” Other European leaders have weighed in, as well, with French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming that “France’s unwavering support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Denmark and Greenland.” Trump has been talking about either buying or annexing the world’s largest island since 2019, during his first term. He brought up the issue again last January, when he raised alarm in European capitals by refusing to rule out using military force to take the territory if necessary. But, while he once described control of Greenland as an “absolute necessity” for US national security, the issue had been on the back burner for most of this year until Landry’s appointment, with the exception of occasional flare-ups over alleged US influence operations targeting the island. Trump’s Greenland fixation had once seemed somewhat random. Danish leaders initially hoped it was a joke . But after a year of seeing Trump’s second term foreign policy in action - particularly the recent release of his administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) - the Greenland gambit now seems to actually serve his broader goals. It makes a lot more sense in the context of the president’s surprisingly activist vision of America’s role in the world. Greenland fits into the administration’s heavy focus on the Western Hemisphere and what the NSS calls the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” to “deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.” Explaining Greenland’s security importance on Monday, Trump said, “If you look up and down the coast of Greenland, you can see Russian and Chinese ships all over the place.” It’s true that the Arctic is increasingly becoming an area of strategic competition , as melting ice makes it more accessible, and that China and Russia have been building up military and commercial assets in the...

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