Greenland is uninhabitable, here’s why Donald Trump wants it

From May until late July, Greenland experiences 24 hours of daylight. In spite of that, there is so much about the world’s largest island which remains a mystery.

And despite the fact 80 percent of Greenland is under a 1.6-mile-deep ice cap, the place is currently hot. Since his return to office in 2025, President Donald Trump has made it very clear he wants the vast frozen land to become part of the US.

So eager is Trump to take it over that, according to the White House this week, “utilizing the US military [is] an option.”

But given almost the entire of the frozen island is uninhabitable, why?

“Greenland is key for technology, security and space exploration,” Tom Dans, who served as commissioner for the United States Arctic Research Commission during the first Trump administration, told The Post.

“Trump has a long-term perspective on this region.”

The only problem is the island – which has a population of just 60,000, a quarter of whom live in capital city Nuuk – is already taken.

Although geographically part of North America, Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, a member of the European Union and a USA ally.

Both Denmark and EU members have been firm in saying the land is not up for sale, and they wouldn’t react too well to a military invasion — although what they would potentially do about it remains a question mark.

The US already has one military base in Greenland, but President Trump wants it all. Although he initially floated military action, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has downplayed that, saying the US would prefer to work through diplomacy with Denmark and Greenland and buy out the land.  

As Trump himself put it while aboard Air Force One, “Right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place. We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security.”

Justina Budginaite-Froehly, a nonresident senior fellow of the Atlantic Council, explained that the island’s location is “strategic,” particularly for monitoring adversaries such as China and Russia.

“If you are controlling the territory, you can, with new technology, build sensors there; Greenland is a huge platform for observing,” said Budginaite-Froehly.

“You can build infrastructure to establish situational awareness of that area and project further power.

Budginaite-Froehly also noted the “Greenland, Iceland and UK gap,” two vast expanses of sea between the three countries, through which Russia can launch, via its Northernmost ports, nuclear submarines into the waters of Europe or the US.

“The submarines can enter the Atlantic. That’s a huge danger for the US, for NATO and for Europe,” she warned.

Greenland is also important for monitoring threats from the air. US military stronghold Pituffik Space Base (originally known as Thule Air Base) has been in Greenland since the Cold War, constructed during the summers of 1951 and 1952.

It serves three purposes: missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance. Radar system there operates 24/7, according to Space.com.

That is for good reason: According to Otto Svendsen, as reported on CNBC, the speediest path for a Russian ballistic missile to hit the US would be to send it over the North Pole and Greenland.

“Security – both surface and subsea, space, communications – [presents] any number of addressable needs,” said Dans. He added Greenland is “a true middle ground between Earth and space.”

Aside from defense, Greenland is thought as a top-notch place for power-hungry data centers, which require lots of cooling — making icy terrain a perfect place for them.

“Greenland is white space for American-led tech innovation, literally and figuratively,” claimed Dans.

Greenland is “literally the best place in the world for data centers,” Drew Horn, formerly a Trump official who focused on energy, agreed. He told Fox News, “It’s just a huge success story waiting to happen.

“I think we have tons of investment that’s going to build it up in the next few years.”

Greenland is also rich in rare earth minerals, which are key for manufacturing goods in the high-tech world we live in. They are essential components for cellphones, TVs, computers, radar, sonar, jet engines, X-ray tubes, lasers, military guidance systems and high-strength magnets.

Large deposits of those rare earth minerals are in China, which has previously tightened access to them as leverage in its 2025 tariff fight with the US. The US would clearly benefit from not needing access to them anymore.

“Trump is a real estate guy,” Clayton Allen, head of practice at Eurasia Group, which focuses on political risk, told CNBC.

“Greenland is sitting on some of the most valuable real estate in terms of economic advantage and strategic defense for the next three to five decades.”

Global warming is also making ice less of an issue, as Greenland becomes increasingly valuable as a site for digging up the critical minerals — as well as capitalizing on the expected, but not yet viable, Transpolar Sea Route, a future shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, via the center of the Arctic Ocean.

“Russia is very interested in building the Sea Route,” said Budginaite-Froehly. “And China is participating in this. It would shorten the shipping time between Europe and Asia.

“Russia is, of course, only talking about civil shipping and trade. But there is no doubt that it is also about more. Very quickly, it can become military.”

It’s also worth noting that Trump is not the only president to put Greenland on his wish list. During World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied Demark, the US military actually occupied Greenland. Remnants of America’s presence are still evident in the island’s infrastructure.

After the war, in 1946, then President Harry Truman put in a secret bid to buy Greenland for $100 million in gold and a piece of Alaska. The deal, which was rationalized with the hope of protecting America from the Soviet Union’s strategic bombers, never came together.

Trump clearly hopes it will be different for him.

Looking at the current big picture of Greenland, Dans said, “President Trump has the imagination and long-term vision to see this. As a builder, it’s his innate ability.”