Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen on Trump's desires on Greenland
The Danish academic considers what Denmark wants with Greenland, and why the United States has already "been having its cake and eating it"
Jon Rahbek-Clemmensen, associate professor at the Royal Danish Defence College, joined the podcast on January 21st 2025, the morning after Donald Trump’s reportedly tense phone call with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. This interview has been edited for length and clarity; the full conversation is available on Apple, Spotify and all other major podcast platforms.
Mette Frederiksen has said five years ago, and just recently, that Greenland is not for sale and it’s up to the Greenlanders to decide what to do with their future. Trump has made his position quite clear. Where do you think the conversation dynamics are at this point? Is there any sort of negotiation?
As I see it, the Danish government is trying to latch on to the word ‘control’ that Donald Trump has used in his public statements. So, he’s said that it’s important for the United States to have control over Greenland, but what does control actually mean? It can mean political control, making Greenland part of the United States. It can also mean that Greenland can become independent and have a closer relationship to the US. Those are the options that the Danish government really wants to avoid. But control can also mean having enough military capacities to be able to protect Greenland, or to be able to operate in Greenland’s vicinity, and that’s the interpretation that the Danish government would like to further. Right after the story first broke, the Danish government announced that it would try and get a majority for further investments in military capacities in the Arctic - new ships, new drones. That did seem an attempt to try to placate Donald Trump.
These latest proposals from Denmark that they’re floating, how much of an increase in investment in military capacity are we talking about?
We don’t have the specifics, but if we follow the plans that the government has announced, we’re talking about a small increase. We’re not talking about an immense reconfiguration of Danish defence spending. However, it’s also important to note that the goal is not to ensure that Denmark alone can protect Greenland, because that is virtually impossible. Denmark could spend its entire defence budget in Greenland and it would struggle to defend the island completely. It’s not so much about the military realities on the ground. I think at this point it’s more of a political process, giving Trump an opportunity to claim a political victory.
Does Denmark see Russia and China as threats that need to be handled with some sort of deterrence capacity?
Well, I think it’s important to note that the threat isn’t against Greenland as such, but more the wider Arctic and the wider European Arctic in particular. Why is Greenland important to the United States? Well, the United States has three interests up there.
It wants to be able to have access to Greenland’s military geography, especially the Pituffik Space Base in northern Greenland, which is an American base that’s used for missile defence and early warning. Then there's the question of Greenland’s minerals. Obviously, Greenland is home to significant deposits of strategic minerals, such as rare earths, which the US could have an interest in buying instead of allowing China to attain a monopoly. Then finally, the US wants to avoid a large Chinese foothold in Greenland.
The key thing is that the US is already getting all these interests as the situation is right now. The US already has military access to Greenland, if it wants more military access or if it wants Denmark to beef up its spending, it can negotiate with Denmark and Greenland. US companies already have access to investments in Greenlandic mining, and if American companies wanted to come in and establish mines in Greenland, I think Greenland would be very, very interested in that. And then finally the Chinese presence, well, China hasn’t really shown an interest in Greenland since 2019.
It is very hard to see, from a geopolitical point of view, what the US would gain from actually acquiring Greenland. Currently, the US has been having its cake and eating it too, getting access to its interests in Greenland: military access, mining access, keeping the Chinese out, and they don’t have to pay the bill for running Greenlandic society.
What does Denmark want? Is Denmark trying to convince the Greenlanders to stay, and if so, for what reason?
Denmark wants two things. First of all, Denmark wants to use Greenland as a way to curry favour with the US. Because the US is interested in Greenland, Denmark can then facilitate US interests on that island, and that gives Denmark more prestige in Washington which it can then use for other policy objectives.
Secondly, Denmark wants to maintain the Kingdom of Denmark in its current configuration. It wants to make sure that Greenland voluntarily wants to stay within the kingdom, and it does that by helping the Greenlanders achieve their interests. So, in a weird paradoxical way, Denmark is kind of helping Greenland to become independent in order for the Greenlanders to stay within the kingdom of Denmark, if that makes sense. But the key thing to remember is that Greenland is very, very, very far away from independence. Greenland remains wholly dependent on Danish economic and administrative support, which annually costs somewhere between 750 million and 1 billion USD, and as long as that’s the situation Greenland cannot become independent. So even if a vast majority of the Greenlanders want to become independent, it’s just not a feasible option. I think the analysis in Copenhagen is that they will then stay within the Kingdom of Denmark.
It seems like this year is quite a critical year in many regards when it comes to the Greenland question. You have elections coming up in Greenland, Denmark taking over the chair of the Arctic Council, also some controversies about the Arctic strategy of Denmark. How are things being interpreted in Copenhagen, is there a bit of a crisis mood?
I would say that we’re in a bit of a pickle, if not a complete crisis. This is obviously a terrible conundrum for the Danish government, because on the one hand what Trump and his people have been doing is basically to upend the fundamental framework of the Kingdom of Denmark. By sending his son to Nuuk, you could interpret that as Trump trying to bilateralize the relationship, so cutting Denmark out, and that would be wholly unacceptable to Copenhagen. We’re in a very precarious position with a new administration coming in, a new transatlantic relationship that’s under significant pressure and where Denmark really needs to have a good relationship with Washington. The Danish government has tried to avoid addressing the American approach directly, and they’ve tried to focus on issues that they can do something about, like defence spending. I think they hope that Trump's attention will move to other issues soon.
What are the communication channels like? Donald Trump Jr’s visit was certainly a PR stunt, but are there other communication channels operating between any of the three parties involved?
There have been discussions between Denmark and Greenland. My guess is that there has been a conversation about how Greenland can get more of a say in foreign policy and perhaps other policy areas going forward. It’s been important for Denmark and Greenland to show that they can stand firm together, and that the norms within the Kingdom of Denmark are still being upheld. The leaders of all the parties in the Greenlandic parliament, including the most secessionist parties, went out and said that none of them wanted to become a part of the United States [on January 11th]. And I think that that sends a really clear signal and it makes it difficult for Trump to push on, because if the Greenlanders don’t want his encroachments and if the Greenlanders don’t want to change the status quo, then how would he actually proceed in changing anything. If the Danes say that this is a question that is up to the Greenlanders, and the Greenlanders say that they’re not interested, then that kind of closes the whole thing down.
The rhetoric coming out of Nuuk, about an independent Greenland being up for a referendum, is that more about posturing or trying to get a better deal between Copenhagen and Nuuk?
One thing to keep in mind is that Greenland will be holding elections this spring, and independence is one of the questions that will take up a significant chunk of space in the public campaign. They could hold a referendum, and maybe they could do that in a way where it wouldn’t cause a political crisis with Denmark, but I think it would be more likely that they would establish a Danish-Greenlandic commission about Greenlandic independence, because that’s typically how things have evolved in the Kingdom of Denmark - slowly, incrementally.
Can there be a guarantee for years and decades ahead that China can’t revisit the notion of establishing a foothold in Greenland without a stronger US political role there?
That’s a really really good question, because that’s one of the few places where US interests could actually be shored up even better than they are right now. If a Chinese actor wants to invest in Greenland, for instance in transportation, then because that issue has been taken over by the Greenlanders it is unclear whether Denmark could actually block that. And Greenland doesn't have a law that regulates foreign investments, unlike Denmark, unlike most European countries. But if the US were to offer Greenland some sort of alternative that would replace some of the investments that could come from China, that could be by establishing some sort of investment fund, or a scheme for low-interest loans for American companies that want to invest in Greenland, then I think that it would be possible for the three parties to find an agreement, and for Greenland to finally say ‘listen, we’re not going to curry favour with China, we’re going to place ourselves wholly within the western alliance’.