Trump Puts Purchase of Greenland on Task List for His New Ambassador to Denmark
Ken Howery, a co-founder of PayPal and former Ambassador to Sweden, may have the skills to make this deal happen.
The last time we reported on Greenland, a massive landslide in a Greenland fjord, caused by melting ice, triggered a surprising seismic event last year that shook the earth for nine days.
Notably back in 2019, then President Donald Trump wanted to persuade the country of Denmark to allow the United States to acquire the land.
As a reminder, Greenland is classified as a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. It was a Danish colony until 1953, when it became fully integrated into the Kingdom of Denmark under
Greenland gained home rule in 1979, allowing it to manage many internal affairs. This was further expanded in 2009 when Greenland achieved self-government, which included greater autonomy over local governance while Denmark retained control over foreign affairs, defense, and monetary policy.
It appears Trump has not forgot his aspirations to gain the mineral-rich lands for the US, as they is on the task list for the new Ambassador to Denmark.
…Trump named Ken Howery, a co-founder of PayPal, as his pick for U.S. ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. Howery previously served as a U.S. ambassador to Sweden, and Trump wrote that he “served our National brilliantly” in that role.
As a Co-Founder of PayPal and venture capital fund, Founders Fund, Ken turned American Innovation and Tech leadership into Global success stories, and that experience will be invaluable in representing us abroad,” Trump explained.
“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity…Thank you Ken, and congratulations!”
Americans are a little excited about this possibility.
IT IS HAPPENING pic.twitter.com/b37QR96VRE
— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) December 23, 2024
There are many reasons such a sale would be a big win for this country.
First, Greenlanders are moving toward independence from Denmark. The 2009 Greenland Self-Government Act establishes significant autonomy for the island, including some leeway to conduct its own foreign affairs. Greenland’s February 2024 foreign, security and defense policy says independence is the ultimate objective. But Greenland is the least densely populated political entity in the world. If it separates from Denmark, it would be responsible for its own security, a task it is ill-equipped to handle.
This is a grave concern given the second important development: Russia and China are threatening the status quo in the Arctic. Moscow has claimed significant chunks of the Arctic Sea, including inside Greenland’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Russian survey ships have encroached on Greenland’s waters, and Russia is expanding its Arctic bases and formidable icebreaker fleet. China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state,” established a shipping network called the “Polar Silk Road” to bind Arctic communities closer to Beijing’s economic and political agenda, and built its own fleet of icebreakers.
Finally, Greenland is believed to have significant natural resources, including gold, silver, copper, oil, uranium and rare earth minerals. This is an opportunity for adversaries to exploit the resources with little regard for local communities or environmental concerns. An independent Greenland would be unable to resist coercive extraction of the kind practiced by China and Russia.
The U.S. can offer an option that preserves Greenland’s sovereignty while protecting it from malign actors.
However, there is plenty of win for Denmark as well. The sale could bring a significant influx of money to the Scandinavian nation, potentially billions of dollars. Furthermore, Greenland has been an economic drain on Denmark, requiring ongoing financial support.
GDP per capita is close to the average for European economies, but the economy is critically dependent upon substantial support from the Danish government, which supplies about half the revenues of the self-rule government, which in turn employs 10,307 Greenlanders out of 25,620 currently in employment (2015). Unemployment nonetheless remains high, with the rest of the economy dependent upon demand for exports of shrimp and fish.
Denmark has consistently maintained that Greenland is not for sale, citing historical ties, national identity, and the rights of the Greenlandic people to self-determination. However, that is where Howery’s skills could come in useful.
Howery is a prominent American entrepreneur, investor, and former diplomat with a diverse and impressive career spanning technology, finance, and public service. He has a very successful stint as the Ambassador to Sweden.
I served as the US Ambassador to Sweden from Oct 2019 – Jan 2021. My priorities as ambassador included strengthening security and defense ties with Sweden to confront challenges posed by non-democratic regimes, deepening economic ties between our two countries including in technology and innovation, and building upon those pillars to connect people via artistic, cultural, and scientific programs and exchanges.
Howery might be able to persuade Denmark to allow Greenland enough self-determination to vote on the matter, while persuading Greenlanders to consider the benefits of such a sale.
When he originally said this I thought it was silly. But it’s actually possible to buy Greenland. Evidently 97% of Greenland would be ok with it but Denmark pays them $500 mill a year to continue owning it.
— RandGPT-64 (@TheRandyCarroll) December 23, 2024
If this sale happens, it would be truly Earth-shaking. Meanwhile, we can enjoy the memes:
Greenland in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/akqWowauyu
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) August 15, 2019
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Comments
I do t think it will happen
It may be a long shot, but I feel the strategic interests are worth exploring.
Yes it would be of great strateigic interest, along with taking back the Panama Canal along with some extra central American territory to put the squeeze on both bordering countries and halt illegal immigration.
Roy Rogers explained the most fundamental law of economics, “Buy land. They ain’t making any more of it.”
Of course, it’s not technically true, but close enough. Always buy large land masses if you are able. ALWAYS. If you can afford the price then there’s no downside to it.
Err … I meant Will Rogers.
Doh!
Were you Triggered?
LOL.
But it could have been worse. I almost typed Rogers Hornsby.
Ha. Very nice!
Roy Rogers said, “Buy horses.”
Roy Rogers had his stuffed. Ew.
“If you can afford the price then there’s no downside to it.”
Except the crushing property taxes.
That’s the beauty of buying countries, there are no property taxes for you. In fact, you collect property taxes!!
Memo for Denmark: If Trump waves a fat check in front of you to buy Greenland, you’d be well advised to take it because his next offer may well be one you can’t refuse. Capisce?
Seward got poo-pooed over his icebox as well.
And this time we’d be dealing with a more reputable seller who wouldn’t try to deny having sold it when they came down with sellerst remorse.
Never ignore a poo poo!
https://youtu.be/QeF1JO7Ki8E?si=AJc2YVXE8eQ_AbNv
More Ice Added to U.S. as Thousands Cheer
To a great many people, including myself, the newspaper accounts of Admiral Byrd’s latest discoveries in the Antarctic a week or so ago made little, if any, sense. I confined my own study of the involved expeditions to the Herald Tribune article. I reread this article many times and pored over the map that went with it, but for two or three days, I couldn’t make out what had actually been done and how it had been accomplished. All that I knew for sure was the Byrd had reported to President Roosevelt (who doesn’t have enough to worry him the way it is) that the recent discoveries had added approximately two hundred thousand square miles of ice to American possessions at the South Pole…
..The dotted area marked A represents the ice that Byrd had discovered previously. It will be noticed at once that the newly discovered ice completely surrounds the previously discovered ice, and a moment’s thought will lead one to wonder how this could be. I couldn’t figure it out myself for a long time, but finally I decided that that’s what comes from exploring in airplanes. You can fly right over something without discovering it, discover something further on, and then come back and discover what, if you had been on dog sledges, you would have been bound to discover first…
[On Byrd’s description of something that may possibly exist or may not] I have been over that sentence a dozen times, and I have come to the conclusion that Admiral Byrd was lost. I think he was lost, and I think he was too proud to say so…
Thurber, People Have More Fun than Anybody p.104ff
That would be self defeating. Greenland as 51st state would bring european socialism to the US.
That is a risk, for sure, but Greenland only has 55,000 people. It would be easy to put a few military bases there and double the population with military families, thereby making it fairly conservative.
That said, I share your initial concern. A full-blown state is a serious thing and a very powerful political entity. Perhaps keeping Greenland as a territory is better.
There’s no way it would be a state. Probably an unincorporated territory like American Samoa or Guam, or even an independent country in free association with the USA like the Marshall Islands.
Why not?
It wouldn’t be admitted as a state because its population is so small. You can’t have a state, with a representative and two senators, with just 50K people.
Also because admitting a new state is so politically sensitive that it’s almost impossible to do without bipartisan agreement, which means states need to be admitted in pairs, one safe R and one safe D. Otherwise the party that sees itself as harmed will go all out to filibuster it in the senate. That’s one thing the Ds threatened to break by getting rid of the filibuster.
There are people living in Greenland, the Inuit. They are Danish citizens and members of the EU. Denmark has been good to its Greenlanders. Its ties to the island go back to Norwegian explorations. When Norway and Denmark spit apart, Greenland and the Faroe Islands went to Denmark. Greenland is not for sale.
I would consider trading Puerto Rico away. Maybe even throw in Vermont.
Which brings up a point? How many Democrats are going to demand statehood for Puerto Rico and trade for taking in Greenland?
The difference is, Puerto Rico would actually fight statehood. They’ve had that option at least twice and decided they better liked things exactly as they were, thank you.
Not so fast on Vermont, buckwheat. They can have Maine and Chicago. Maybe California if the negotiations get tough.
Here is the biggest road block to this happening: Greenlanders are currently citizens of the EU. This means they can move and reside freely within EU states. Will Greenlanders be willing to trade autonomy of movement with in the EU for autonomy of movement within the United States? Because if they aren’t offered US citizenship than the whole thing is likely a nonstarter.
Why, so some Jimmy Carter can give it away later?
Has anyone considered what the greenlanders might think of this?
As for Jimmy Carter giving away the Panama canal, I’m genuinely confused. Wasn’t the lease up? Was there really anything he could have done about it? Short of sending troops in and shooting up the place?
I don’t believe the Canal Zone was ever under lease, but a US possession.
It’s Guantanamo that’s under lease, and that one’s gonna be fun when it expires.
The Canal Zone was under US control according to a treaty signed in 1903. This included annual payments and a military base for protection. Carter signed a new treaty for some reason which ended with turning over the zone and canal to Panama in 1999 after a 20 year period of joint Panamanian-United States control. My wife lived there for years as her dad was stationed there and thats where she met her first husband. Her oldest son was born there.
Even if it had been a lease, and it were up, keeping it would not have required sending troops in or shooting the place up. The troops were already there, after all. Carter could simply have said “No, we’re keeping it, what are you going to do about it? Send in troops and shoot the place up? I really wouldn’t advise that.”
After all, Carter had already shown his full appreciation that treaties are only binding for as long as the president wants them to be. When he abrogated the Taiwan treaty, Goldwater said “Hey, don’t you need the senate’s advice and consent for that?”, and Carter’s lawyers said, “No, the president only needs advice and consent to get the USA into treaties, not to get it out of them”. Which makes sense. And the Supreme Court said, “It’s a political question; you know we don’t do those.”
So had Carter wanted to abrogate a hypothetical treaty with Panama that involved a lease that was about to expire, he would have felt free to do so.
Thatcher was in a stickier position when the Hong Kong lease expired, both because the UK has traditionally taken the view that international law is actually binding, and also because it was China, not Argentina.
There was no “hypothetical” treaty, there was an actual Treaty. In fact, two of them. The original in 1903 and a second in 1979 that specified joint US-Panamanian control for 20 years then turning over the canal to Panama in 1999
The 1903 treaty did not involve a lease, and of course the 1979 treaty did not yet exist. Grizz’s question depends on a hypothetical treaty that did involve a lease expiring during Carter’s term. Had such a treaty existed, and Carter wanted to abrogate it, he could easily have done so.
The USA created Panama (stole it from Columbia is perhaps more accurate) fair and square back when such things were still accepted as normal acts of Nation States. Teddy Roosevelt sent a fleet and Panama declared it’s independence from Columbia…. conveniently the US fleet brought along a pre written Constitution for Panama giving the USA control of the area around the canal site.
IMO it’s too important to US trade, our economy and too vital a strategic an asset in our own hemisphere to leave in other hands. Sucks for Panama but little dogs can’t run with big dogs.
Taiwan is far closer to China than Panama is to the USA. Sucks for Taiwan.
I think US imperialism is bad optics right at this moment.
On the other hand, for what Joe Biden already spent on Ukraine, he should have at least signed a lease with option to buy.
Here is a toast to the new territory of Magadonia!
the Faroe Islands. Treat them kindly as most of the salmon I buy comes from there.
Ok. Let’s play “expand the empire.”
Make Canada the 51st State. Incorporate Greenland into that. Then take Qatar over the weekend. Move the small number of “citizens” of Qatar to Greenland. The change of climate might make them less murdery. Trump will love the new palaces in Qatar. Build giant power plants with exceedingly inexpensive fuel sources for Elon and his AI endeavors.
I wouldn’t mind the Maldives, either. Beautiful place.
It’s a shame the US wasted so much blood and treasure on stupid wars (beginning with Vietnam). If expanding the empire had been on a priority list, by now would be able to travel almost anywhere without a passport.
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