| 10 mins read
Donald Trump’s 2019 proposal to buy Greenland from Denmark came across as startlingly anachronistic. Someone needed to take POTUS aside and explain that this is not how things are done anymore. True, the US has systematically enlarged its territory through purchases, notably of Louisiana (1803) and Alaska (1867). Denmark’s sale of the Danish West Indies to the US in 1917 was one of the most recent of these acquisitions, but all were colonial-era transactions, when territories without their own recognised governments were properties to be acquired and traded by greater powers.
Some of the amused perplexity of 2019 survived into 2025. Bryce Elder in the Financial Times mocked up a ‘trading alert’ for Greenland in response to ‘renewed speculation of M&A activity.’ But beneath the amusement was a frisson of concern. At the very least, Trump’s repeat performance suggested some level of seriousness. It also indicated something about who has Trump’s ear. The US has tried to buy Greenland several times and—each time—senior US military officers have been the leading advocates. These are the kinds of people who dissent from the UK’s decision to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, although US access to the military base on Diego Garcia has been protected. It is apparently of no importance to them to comply with the rulings of a UN tribunal. Herald the realpolitik of spheres of influence; RIP to the rules-based international order.
The second time around, the response of the Danish government has changed. While some commentators have portrayed it as more conciliatory, it is better seen as more careful. In 2019, Copenhagen said that Greenland was not for sale, implying that this was a decision for the Danes to make. This time, the Danish prime minister proposed that the Greenlanders would make their own decision. This is a much stronger position to defend if the aim is to paint Trump as an antediluvian cold warrior as it rests on the right of self-determination rather than the preferences of the colonial power.
However, self-determination is not a real prospect for the Greenlanders; ‘independence’ will inevitably be a fiction. The history of Danish colonisation created resentment which sustains an independence movement, but there is also opposition to further mining development. Any large-scale venture would have significant environmental risks, as well as bringing the prospects of social disruption from a large inflow of workers. This presents a dilemma: anti-mining preferences are better protected by remaining part of Denmark than going it alone, because Denmark provides the public subsidy that allows Greenland to be inhabited while limiting development. But a ‘win’ for Denmark in the form of a Greenlandic vote to retain a close affiliation will not subdue US demands: Greenland’s military security already depends on the US, and Trump has indicated a willingness to use tariffs against Denmark if US military and commercial proposals are resisted. Inevitably, the US will largely get its way, as it has done in Greenland for decades.
Why, then, did Trump choose to speak of a sale, which will not happen and is not needed to achieve American goals in any case? Presumably, Trump did this because it attracts a lot more attention than the pragmatic alternative, which is to negotiate quietly for further access for US military and commercial interests. The immediate effect is to make the position of the US in Greenland highly salient for the Danish public as well as the Greenlanders. This seems irrational, as the tenor of mobilised public opinion will surely be anti-American.
How can this be understood? Michael Ignatieff has described Trump as a ‘trickster’ for his winding-up of the Canadians. ‘Tricksters intimidate and unsettle. Barbed humour is their weapon of choice. They have an instinct for what gets under the skin of opponents and a gift for keeping them off balance.’ Daniel Fried offered a similar take: ‘Trump’s threats may be mere trolling. Trump seems to relish saying things that send people scurrying, chattering and expressing outrage’. He detected a possible rational purpose: to distract the attention of US voters from more difficult domestic policy issues.
It is also possible that the target audience for Trump’s proposal to purchase Greenland was Russia. Superficially, the proposal was a response to the increased Russian presence in the Arctic. But, at another level, it spoke a shared Putin-esque language. It signalled that the US was defining a sphere of influence, in which old-fashioned ideas about supporting governments which upheld American liberal democratic values will be replaced by naked power and manipulation. Within spheres of influence, it is clear who is master—and the governments of small and medium-sized countries within the sphere can expect no quarter. As the Russians have shown repeatedly in Georgia, Armenia and Moldova, as well as Ukraine, dissenting domestic policies are not allowed. Governments within a sphere are repeatedly reminded of their dependency; the legitimacy of their democracies is of no interest. Indeed, the weaker the governments of dependent nations, the more firmly the great power can convey that its sphere of influence is secure.
Trump knows that the US will eventually achieve its aims of an enlarged military presence and more commercial mining in Greenland. In 1946 (the last time an offer to purchase was made), the US was polite enough to keep the offer secret. Rumours reached Denmark where all political parties rejected the idea, conjuring up a good deal of rhetoric about Greenland’s cultural importance and links to Denmark’s Viking past. While Danish governments talked the talk of expecting the US to withdraw from its wartime occupation of Greenland, public attention faded. In 1951, the two countries made a cooperation agreement which allowed the US to keep its wartime bases and develop new ones.
By breaking the rules of quiet (double) dealing, Trump achieves something else. The Danish government will end up making concessions to the United States in the face of hostile public opinion—and this will weaken it. The deliberate weakening of friendly governments suggests that, in Trump’s eyes, they are not friendly enough. Accommodating US security interests is not sufficient for the new administration’s demands. Denmark—like Canada—retains an irritating grasp on a semblance of sovereignty. Aided by cover from the EU, it insists on a degree of policy autonomy, particularly over US corporations as distinct from security matters. The MAGA programme breaks down such distinctions and brings new demands for compliance from subordinate governments. Of course, governments outside western Europe (notably in Latin America) can already give detailed tutorials on what it has meant for decades of domestic politics to be in the US sphere of influence. The rules-based international order has always been selectively applied, but that will not make its withdrawal from Europe (or Canada) any less traumatic.
Trump’s inclination to deviate from the principles and practices of the rules-based order is a challenge to democratic governments. As critics are wont to point out, that order did not constrain American power. Rather, it dressed it up, rendering it consistent with the appearance of autonomy and consent from sovereign states. The lesser Western powers were able to maintain appearances because the rules-based order helped to manage the domestic political salience of international relations. Mostly, governments refrained from pursuing their antagonisms by directly addressing the public in other countries. On the contrary, they often lent each other authority through the performance of diplomacy dignified with red carpets, handshakes and photo opportunities. Voters were persuaded to see their elected leaders as national figures, representing them on world stages.
In the next four years, European governments can expect that the US will intervene in their domestic politics in new and troublesome ways. As already trialled by Elon Musk, the Trump White House speaks to people via social media—not to governments via diplomacy. In the UK, it has already been demonstrated how disruptive that can be. It does not really matter whether Musk’s intervention helps or hinders electoral support for Reform or the AfD in Germany; rather, as Peter Pomerantsev explained about Putin’s disinformation strategy, the aim is not to persuade people to support a particular programme, but to create profound doubt about whether any political party or government can be believed. It may seem perverse that leaders seeking cooperation with Trump will be made to look weak, with every concession shouted about on X—but that is not the point. There are bigger stakes being played for through the corruption of peaceful political argument and the normalisation of populist tropes. By promoting disillusionment with elected governments, challenges to authority and cynicism about democracy, Trump is establishing new norms for the American sphere of influence.
