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Topic: Diplomacy Blog Brand: The Buzz Region: Americas, and Arctic Tags: Andrew Johnson, Arctic Circle, Denmark, Donald Trump, Greenland, Harry S. Truman, North America, and United States A Brief History of the US Trying (and Failing) to Buy Greenland January 8, 2026 By: Peter Suciu
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Though Donald Trump has pursued a US acquisition of Greenland more aggressively than any of his predecessors, the idea dates back to the 1860s under President Andrew Johnson.
President Donald Trump’s obsession with the United States obtaining Greenland has rattled key US allies, with Danish officials even warning that any military effort to seize its semi-autonomous island territory would mean the end of NATO. Trump’s political allies in Washington have also expressed concern about the president’s continued calls for Greenland to be part of the United States.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate,” Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told reporters on Tuesday evening.
Why Is Trump So Fixated on Greenland?
Like a child before Christmas waiting for the season’s new must-have toy, Trump remains fixated on the United States taking control of the island—a point he also told reporters on board Air Force One while returning from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to Washington on Sunday.
“It’s so strategic,” Trump said. “Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.”
The White House has said a “range of options” are being considered on how to make the self-governing Danish territory a part of the United States. US officials have not ruled out utilizing US military force. Some, including deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, have even highlighted it as a distinct possibility. Outside the White House on Monday, Miller declared that “nobody is going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland”—meaning in effect that Denmark could not protect the island if the United States decided to invade.
An official transfer to the United States isn’t actually required for the United States to maintain a military presence. In fact, a 1951 treaty signed between Washington and Copenhagen already gives the United States an option to beef up its military presence in Greenland.
“The US has such a free hand in Greenland that it can pretty much do what it wants,” Mikkel Runge Olesen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen, told The New York Times. “I have a very hard time seeing that the US couldn’t get pretty much everything it wanted, if it just asked nicely.”
The paper of record noted that under the Cold War agreement—one that Trump, as president, should be aware of, but probably isn’t—the US “already enjoys sweeping military access in Greenland.”
The US military maintains just a single base on the island, but the treaty allows it to expand the military footprint considerably.
“The agreement allows it to ‘construct, install, maintain, and operate’ military bases across Greenland, ‘house personnel’ and ‘control landings, takeoffs, anchorages, moorings, movements, and operation of ships, aircraft, and waterborne craft.’”
In other words, the US has to inform Greenland, and multiple additional bases could be built. But none of that is likely to satisfy Trump, who, as a real estate developer, built a business empire. By all indications, the president now wants to build an American empire, and has remained obsessed with Greenland.
The US Military Has Occupied Greenland for 80 Years
The vast island, covering 836,000 square miles, has been controlled by Denmark since before the United States existed. Copenhagen gained the island as a colony in 1721. In the early 19th century, Greenland was seen as little more than land on a map. Yet, it was essential to Denmark because it gave the European nation an overseas empire, a sign of prestige among the great powers.
Today, Greenland is home to vast deposits of natural resources, including oil, gas, and most notably, rare earth minerals. It is also situated between North America and Europe, giving it a strategic location—the original reason behind the US military presence.
During World War II, when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany, the country’s ambassador, who was cut off from the government in Copenhagen, struck a defense agreement with the United States. Washington had legitimate fears that Germany could use Greenland as a stepping stone to the United States. Germany had already attempted to leverage France’s overseas colonies in a similar manner—and Washington certainly didn’t want the Nazis building bases off the coast of Canada!
“The Germans had already established small meteorological bases on [Greenland’s] east coast and relayed information for battles in Europe. American troops eventually ousted them and established more than a dozen bases there with thousands of troops, landing strips and other military facilities,” The New York Times reported.
The US continued to maintain a presence after World War II, but following the Cold War, shut down all the bases except what is now called Pittufik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Force Base.
This Isn’t the First Time America Has Tried to Buy Greenland
Trump isn’t the first US leader to have sought to obtain Greenland. US interest in the island dates back to the expansionist fervor seen following the Civil War. Manifest Destiny may have been accomplished, and there was more land that the United States needed—but as an emerging power, it wanted more.
After the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson’s administration looked to expand Washington’s influence into the Atlantic. The country had already reached the Pacific thanks to the Louisiana Purchase and Mexico’s cession of its northern lands following the Mexican-American War.
In 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward concluded a deal with Russia, which sold its Alaskan colony in North America to the United States for $7.2 million (approx. $150 million in 2026). Although the deal was derided at the time, as Alaska was then little more than a frozen wasteland, it wouldn’t be long before the discovery of gold changed people’s minds.
At the time of the Alaska Purchase, Seward already had his sights on Greenland. In the years that followed, he worked with former Treasury Secretary Robert J. Walker, who had helped broker the deal for Alaska with Russia, to try to convince Congress to open negotiations to buy Greenland and Iceland from Denmark.
Walker, a noted expansionist, immediately saw the potential with Greenland, which offered fishing grounds and was likely to be filled with untold mineral wealth. However, Congress was already wary of more land deals and consumed by the ongoing political issues that led to the impeachment of President Johnson. The issue died before it could begin—but it would soon be brought up again.
The United States’ expansion continued in the final decades of the 20th century, with the country annexing Hawaii and gaining former Spanish colonies in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. In 1910, US Ambassador to Denmark Maurice Francis Egan proposed a trade with the European nation that would give Denmark the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, a territory obtained from Spain after the Spanish-American War, in exchange for Greenland and the Danish West Indies.
“Greenland is, as you know, a Danish monopoly,” Egan wrote in a report to the State Department, per CNN. “It has never been exploited, although the Norwegians are clever enough to see its possibilities, as they already see what might be done with a lesser opportunity in Iceland.”
As it had decades before, the US didn’t actually extend the offer to Denmark. However, Washington did eventually buy the Danish West Indies, which are now the US Virgin Islands. It is unclear if Copenhagen would have agreed to an offer in the 19th or early 20th century, but it is possible a deal could have been reached.
Truman’s Postwar Effort to Buy Greenland Was Very Serious
Seeing the threat from the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War, President Harry S. Truman made a very serious, though not public, effort to buy Greenland—offering the recovering Danish government $100 million in gold for the island. Copenhagen refused, but offered the United States military facilities on the island, which were sealed by the signing of the security treaty in 1951.
The problem for Washington, then as now, was that Copenhagen had no interest in selling its Arctic territory. Yet Denmark saw that defending the island from the Soviets would be harder than stopping a German invasion in WWII. The 1951 treaty gave the US the right to build and operate military bases in Greenland. That was good enough for the United States, and no serious effort to buy the territory was raised again until the first Trump administration.
Ever the businessman, Trump has likened the acquisition of Greenland to nothing more than a “large real estate deal,” but the issue is far more complicated. Denmark wouldn’t even have final say on selling the island; the Greenlandic people would, and most surveyed have no interest in becoming American citizens.
Still, the United States can beef up its military presence. Although a 2004 amendment, signed by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, calls for the US to consult with Denmark and Greenland before making any “significant changes” to its military operations, it really just means Washington would inform both parties of its intentions.
That likely won’t be good enough for Trump, but like the child who didn’t get the right toy on Christmas Day, something else will suffice to keep him happy for a while.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: Editor@nationalinterest.org.
Image: Shutterstock / muratart.
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Источник: nationalinterest.org