CNN
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On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. landed in Greenland, the Arctic island that his father, President-elect Donald Trump, has expressed strong support for purchasing, despite harsh comments from Greenland is not for sale.

Trump Jr. called the trip “a bit of fun” and told CNN: “As a nature lover, I’m looking forward to stopping in Greenland this week.”

But the trip has fueled speculation about what exactly his father’s plans are for this Arctic region.

In December, Trump reiterated calls for U.S. ownership of Greenland made in his first presidency, calling it “an absolute necessity.” On Monday, in a social media post announcing his son’s visit, he said Greenland would “benefit tremendously” from becoming part of the United States. “We will protect and value it from a very vicious outside world,” Trump added.

The president-elect says ownership of the island is critical to national security, but experts say he may also be eyeing other aspects of Greenland, such as its wealth of natural resources – including rare earth metals – that may be more easily accessible if climate change causes the area to melt ice.

Greenland is the largest island in the world and home to more than 56,000 people. As a former Danish colony and now an autonomous territory of Denmark, it occupies a unique geopolitical location, lying between the United States and Europe. The capital Nuuk is closer to New York than to Denmark’s capital Copenhagen.

It has long been considered crucial to U.S. security, particularly in deterring a possible attack from Russia, said Ulrik Pram Gad, a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. The Northwest Passage shipping route runs along the coast and the island is part of the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a strategic maritime region.

Trump is not the first US president to float the idea of ​​buying Greenland. When President Andrew Johnson purchased Alaska in 1867, he also considered purchasing Greenland. At the end of World War II, the Truman administration offered Denmark $100 million for the island, according to documents first reported by Danish media.

Neither offer came to fruition, but under a 1951 defense treaty the United States received an air base in northwest Greenland, now called Pituffik Space Base. Halfway between Moscow and New York, it is the northernmost outpost of the US armed forces and is equipped with a missile warning system.

The US wants to ensure that “no hostile major powers control Greenland because it can be a base for attacks on the US,” Pram Gad told CNN.

But what may be even more attractive to Trump are Greenland’s rich deposits of natural resources, said Klaus Dodds, a professor of geopolitics at the University of London’s Royal Holloway.

These include oil and gas as well as the rare earth metals, which are in high demand for the electric cars and wind turbines of the green transition as well as for the production of military equipment.

China currently dominates global rare earth production and has threatened to restrict exports of critical minerals and related technologies since before Trump’s second term.

“There’s no question that Trump and his advisers are very concerned about the stranglehold that China appears to have,” Dodds told CNN. Greenland offers a potentially rich source of these important minerals, he added. “I think Greenland is really about keeping China out.”

Melting ice and rapidly rising temperatures in the Arctic are putting Greenland on the front line of the climate crisis, but some also see economic opportunities as climate change reshapes the country.

Ice loss has opened shipping routes and extended the time they can travel during the Northern Hemisphere summer. According to the Arctic Council, shipping in the Arctic increased 37% over the decade to 2024, partly due to melting ice.

“I think Trump instinctively comes to the idea that the Arctic is melting,” and he recognizes the perceived opportunities, Dodds said. Although he warned, the reality is that conditions along these routes are still often treacherous, and melting ice can make navigating the waters even more dangerous.

There is also speculation that melting ice could increase access to natural resources, but the climate crisis has not yet proven to be a major game-changer here, said Phillip Steinberg, a geography professor at the University of Durham.

It’s not that climate change is making Greenland’s resources more accessible, he told CNN, but rather that it is “more necessary.”

The governments of Denmark and Greenland have strongly opposed the idea that the Arctic state can be bought.

“We are not for sale and never will be. We must not lose our years-long fight for freedom,” wrote Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede in a Facebook post at the end of December.

Kuupik V. Kleist, a former prime minister of Greenland, said Trump speaks more to U.S. citizens than to Greenlanders. “I don’t see anything in the future that would pave the way for a sale. You don’t just buy a country or a people,” he told CNN.

But Trump’s comments come at an interesting time for Greenland, Dodds said. The Inuit-led government has recently increased its calls for independence from Denmark. In his New Year’s address, Egede called for throwing off the “shackles of the colonial era”.

“It puts Denmark in a panic,” said Dodds, who appears to have been more focused on his relations with Greenland. In December, Denmark announced a huge increase in military spending for Greenland. Then, in early January, the Danish royal family introduced a redesigned royal coat of arms that gave even greater prominence to the polar bear that symbolizes Greenland.

Greenland has sought to strengthen its independence by diversifying its economy away from fishing. A new airport opened in Nuuk in November as part of plans to increase tourism. But it still relies on an annual subsidy of around $500 million from Denmark, which has proven to be a major sticking point on the road to independence.

This raises a very interesting question, Dodds said. “What would Greenland do if Trump offered, say, $1 billion a year to have a different kind of connection?”

Some Greenlandic politicians have floated the idea of ​​a special partnership, similar to the one the US has with the Marshall Islands, where Greenland has sovereignty but also financial support from the US in exchange for agreements on certain US strategic interests.

However, former Prime Minister Kleist expressed great skepticism as to whether such a merger could work. “I don’t think that’s of interest either. Just think of how the United States has treated its own indigenous peoples.”

It remains unclear for now to what extent Trump will pursue his stated desire to acquire Greenland after his term in office. “Nobody knows if it’s just bravery, if it’s a threat to get something else, or if it’s actually something he wants to do,” Pram Gad said.