Former President Trump has repeatedly expressed a desire for the United States to acquire Greenland, refusing to rule out military action and stating he intends to make the semi-autonomous Danish territory part of the U.S. “one way or the other.”
Trump argued the U.S. needs to control the vast, largely frozen island, situated primarily within the Arctic Circle, for security reasons, alleging that China and Russia are attempting to take it over instead.
Greenland’s democratically elected leaders have rejected any U.S. takeover, with the island’s government asserting it is “something they cannot accept under any circumstance.”
Several factors contribute to the Trump administration’s intense interest in Greenland, including its abundant natural resources—reserves of oil, natural gas, and rare earth minerals. However, the island’s strategic location and the melting sea ice surrounding its borders are also vitally important.
New Routes Around the Globe
The diminishing Arctic sea ice has opened up opportunities for utilizing northern shipping routes, potentially saving logistics companies millions of dollars in fuel costs by providing significantly shorter paths between Asia and Western Europe and the United States. These northern routes were historically passable only during warmer months.
Two primary Arctic routes are becoming increasingly viable. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) follows Russia’s roughly 15,000-mile northern border. This path doesn’t bring ships particularly close to Greenland, and Russia and China have agreed to jointly develop and utilize the route, increasing its use in recent years.
In February 2021, a Russian commercial vessel, assisted by an icebreaker, successfully traversed the NSR during winter, demonstrating its feasibility.
The other route, the Northwest Passage, runs much closer to Greenland’s coastal waters and is likely the one causing the most concern for the Trump administration.
Currently, goods from ports in Russia or East Asian manufacturing hubs typically travel south. However, this route, via the Suez Canal in Egypt, is approximately 3,000 miles longer.
According to the Arctic Institute, the Northern Sea Route can reduce shipping costs by as much as 50%, considering fuel and other expenses. For example, the distance from Japan to Europe is reduced to about 10 days compared to the roughly 22 days required to sail around the southern tip of Africa and through the Suez Canal.
A 2024 analysis by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies indicated the northern route would also shorten a journey from Shanghai, China, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands by approximately 10 days.
As sea temperatures continue to rise and winter ice cover diminishes, shipping traffic through the north is expected to increase, making control of these passages—and the extensive Greenlandic coastline they border—more critical.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shared projections in 2022 illustrating the new routes expected to become accessible to regular tankers around Greenland in the coming decades.
NOAA’s modeling predicts a substantial increase in viable journeys for both polar-class vessels, designed to navigate sea ice, and standard open-water ships. The agency even forecasts that by 2059, a polar-class vessel may be able to sail the most direct route, directly across the North Pole, as sea ice formation continues to decline.
