President Donald Trump’s recent statements about Greenland brought back good memories.
A highlight of my life was an opportunity for a three-week backpacking trip to Greenland. The world’s largest island features wild mountains rising 10,000 feet out of the ocean on the east side, an ice cap that covers 80% of Greenland and is up to two miles thick, and settlements on the southeastern coast.
Erik Thorvaldsson (Erik the Red) established a Norse colony in Greenland around A.D. 985. His son Leif Erikson was converted to Christianity during a winter in Norway with King Olaf Trygvesson and then converted most of his fellow Greenlanders, including his mother Thjodhild, who established a church. Besides climbing the mountains and crossing the glacier icecap, I was thrilled to explore the ruins of the Norse colony, including Erik’s hall, Thjodhild’s church and the stone church at Hvalsey.
It was 1976, the Bicentennial of the Declaration of Independence. Standing outside the great hall of Erik the Red, it occurred to me that this was another birthplace of America. Here, in this hall, Leif and his fellow Vikings made plans for the voyage westward to America, where they established the Vinland colony at the L’Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland. Vinland was soon abandoned, but the Greenland colonies survived until at least A.D. 1500.
Around this time the North Atlantic cooled, making navigation and contact with Norway and Iceland more difficult. Europe was occupied with the Reformation and other matters, and the Norse colonies were neglected and almost forgotten. In 1721, Hans Egede, a Norwegian missionary of Danish descent, sailed to Greenland to find the lost Norse colonies and convert them to the Lutheran faith. He never found them, although he found a few Inuit (related to Eskimo) with blond hair and blue eyes, so he spent the rest of his life preaching to the Inuit. As a result, Greenland is 95% Lutheran today, and a monument in Qaqortoq (Julianehåb) extols Egede as the “Apostle of Greenland.”
Greenland’s ties with Denmark and Norway (which was part of Denmark until 1814) are thus longstanding. The United States recognized Denmark’s sovereignty over most of Greenland in 1921, in return for Denmark selling a Caribbean island group then known as the Danish West Indies (now the United States Virgin Islands) to the United States in 1917. Norway claimed northeastern Greenland, but the International Court in The Hague rejected that claim in 1933. Denmark thus has a strong claim to sovereignty over Greenland. About a fifth of Greenland’s GDP consists of subsidies from Denmark.
However, Greenland’s relationship with Denmark has been rocky sometimes. Greenland is in the Western Hemisphere; it is only island-hopping to Ellesmere Island and from there to the coast of Canada. That the world’s largest island (836,330 square miles) should be owned by a tiny country in Europe over 1,500 miles away, seems an anomaly. The population (~56,000) is about 80% Inuit who speak Greenlandic; Danish is only a secondary language. Nearly 150 Inuit women have sued Denmark over forced contraception, and Greenlanders have complained about forced relocation. Especially irksome has been the Danish policy of fodesteskriterie (“place of birth criteria”) by which Danes who move to Greenland are paid higher wages than Greenlanders for the same jobs.
In 1979, Denmark granted hjemmestyre (“home rule”), allowing Greenland to have its own Parliament. In 2008, 75% of Greenlanders voted for selvstyre (“autonomy”), giving themselves a high degree of independence. If Greenlanders voted for total independence, they could have it.
But dissatisfaction with Denmark does not necessarily mean Greenlanders are eager to become part of the United States. On a recent visit to Greenland, Donald Trump Jr. was greeted by people wearing MAGA hats, but it is questionable whether those Trump supporters speak for Greenlanders in general. In his 2025 New Year’s address, Prime Minister Muut Egede (I haven’t been able to determine whether he is a descendant of Hans Egede) said Greenland must take a “step forward” and shape its own future, “notably when it comes to trading partners and the people with whom we should collaborate closely.” However, after Trump expressed interest in acquiring the island, Egede declared that Greenland is “not for sale and will never be for sale.”
Even with Trump’s noteworthy “art of the deal,” U.S. ownership of Greenland will be difficult to accomplish. But the doors are open for further cooperation in trade and defense.
Besides its largely untapped mineral resources — such as copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, graphite, olivine, cryolite and marble — Greenland is of strategic importance. If Russia wanted to launch a missile or air attack upon the United States, the shortest and quickest route is across the Arctic. That’s why the U.S. has maintained the Distant Early Warning Line from Alaska to Baffin Island and missile sites across the northern tier of the United States. The northernmost point of Greenland, Cape Morris Jesup, is roughly 450 miles from the North Pole. Many Greenlanders realize that their country, situated as it is and sparsely populated, is vulnerable to attack from either Russia or China. Thoughtful Greenlanders recognize they cannot depend upon Denmark to protect them from attack.
Thus, increased military cooperation between Greenland and the United States is both needed and highly possible. Trump’s opening salvo may manifest his mastery of the “art of the deal.”
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy, Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law, and Pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church of Notasulga, Ala. (www.woodlandpca.org). He may be contacted for speaking engagements at eidsmoeja@juno.com.
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