Huw Paige is a freelance journalist and writer, specializing in the polar regions. His book Exceptional: Why We Get the Arctic Wrong, and Why That Matters will be published by Verso Books.
After doing lasting damage to the relationship between the US and Europe, Donald Trump got roughly the same deal over Greenland he could have obtained by asking politely. The administration’s plan to acquire the island has been put on the back burner.
While Donald Trump’s bid to grab control over Greenland from Denmark has been attracting all the headlines, the focus on the Arctic is also making Norway anxious. Its northern territory Svalbard could become another bone of geopolitical contention.
When Donald Trump first started talking about turning Greenland into US property, he pretended to care about what its people would like to see happen. Trump and his associates are now dropping the pretense and threatening to use brute force.
The geopolitical race for the Arctic has become a major talking point for the international media. Antarctica hasn’t attracted the same attention, but the frozen continent is also becoming a site of contestation for the world’s most powerful states.
Donald Trump’s overtures to the people of Greenland aren’t making a positive impact, even among those who are keen to break ties with Denmark. The island’s new coalition government is doing its best to keep Trump and J. D. Vance at arm’s length.
Donald Trump’s efforts to claim Greenland for the US is part of a wider push toward militarization of the Arctic. Conflicts thousands of miles away, like the Russian war in Ukraine, are already having an impact on the peoples of the region.
Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland brought unprecedented global attention to this week’s election. But calls for independence weren’t the only issue at stake in the election debate, and there’s little support for integration with the US.
The Arctic region is becoming a theater for competition between states over its resources and geopolitical advantages. This is having a deeply harmful impact on the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, whose way of life doesn’t fit in with state borders.
Even without owning it as a territory, the US already has massive influence over Greenland’s future, from blocking Chinese investment to controlling military installations. As climate change transforms the Arctic, this American influence will only grow stronger.