Donald Trump wants to buy Greenland, and he is serious: Here's how much it would cost

Donald Trump

President-elect Donald Trump has expressed interest in acquiring Greenland. He is considering diplomatic and economic pressure on Denmark, aiming to expand American influence and cement his legacy. In the same breath, he wants Canada to become the US’ 51st state and also threatened to gain control of the Panama Canal.

Trump's desire to acquire Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, comes with a hefty price tag - between $12.5 billion and $77 billion. This estimate, provided by David Barker, a real estate developer and former economist at the New York Fed, is based on the prices of the US Virgin Islands and Alaska, adjusted for inflation and economic growth, as per The New York Times.

Taking over Greenland is not a completely new idea. The US, decades ago, offered to buy Greenland from Denmark, a long-secret plan that was revealed in the 1990s, even if US cannot buy the island it could find ways to exercise more influence over it.

Why does Trump want control of Greenland?

Greenland is rich in minerals essential for technology and defence, including rare earth elements used in mobile phones, electric vehicles, and weapons. As China dominates the global rare earth market, Greenland’s reserves are of increasing interest to the US.

Trump said he wants to acquire Greenland for national defence reasons. By taking the island under its control, the US seeks to counter Russia and China’s growing influence in Greenland and the Arctic, ensuring its dominance in strategically evolving lands between Europe and America.

Greenland is the world’s largest island that is not a continent and is a strategically important part of the Arctic region. Greenland is also home to a large American space facility. Trump had first expressed his interest in buying Greenland from Denmark in 2019.

Trump's failed bid in 2019

While Trump’s 2019 bid for the Arctic territory was dismissed as little more than a joke, the president-elect’s timing is better this time around — Greenlanders are intensifying their push for independence from Denmark. Within the next three months, they will hold a general election that will take the temperature of that relationship.

Denmark, while responsible for Greenland’s security and defence, has limited military capabilities on the vast island and has also been slow in enhancing its military capacity in Greenland amid encroachments from Russia and China. At present, these include four ageing inspection vessels, a Challenger surveillance plane and 12 dog sled patrols, all tasked with monitoring an area four times the size of France. A report by Financial Times suggested Greenland's resources could be worth $1.1 trillion.