2025-01-12 Trump and Greenland - a timeline

This post is a detailed, annotated, and sourced timeline of Trump’s noise about buying Greenland. It has three parts: (1) a short intro, (2) a bulleted summary, (3) the timeline itself, and (4) a couple of bonus links.

Intro

I was curious about Trump’s renewed noise about Greenland, in particular his threats to use economic and/or military force, which suggested (to me at least) that one of his aims might be to spark a break with NATO. He has a few smart people around him (like Stephen “Discount Goebbels” Miller), but few of them have the level of international strategic sophistication to come up with this baroque story — so my working assumption was that the plan was fed to him. I spent an evening digging into it, and here’s the resulting timeline — deep, a bit crude, but it’s far more thoroughly sourced than anything else I’ve seen. 👉🏼 If you use this information for something you publish, don’t be a d*ck: please cite this as a source. 👈🏼

Summary

Here’s my take:

• In the mid-aughts, China became increasingly open about its global ambitions, and in that context began to publicly court Greenland.

• China’s efforts expanded over the next decade, and in the late teens it unveiled its Arctic Policy as part of its Belt and Road Initiative.

• As those efforts were coming to fruition, China (1) began to cooperate with Russia on a range of mutual interests, in particular the northern passage opening due to climate disruption, and (2) began to move more assertively with regard to Scandinavia and North Atlantic countries.

• In the same period, Russia’s increasingly problematic and/or belligerent activity (and its cooperation with China) began to concern the US, which set about reorganizing its military resources as a counter.

• In the late teens, I suspect that Russia may have begun to covertly promote pro-independence sentiment in Greenland. However, the growth of those sentiments was also normal and genuine, fueled in part by pretty generic internet effects (media penetration, ideological propagation, etc).

• In 2018, prompted in part by very active Chinese overtures, Greenland green-lit an initiative to expand aviation as the only viable way to interconnect the island’s far-flung population centers.

• These developments came to a head, prompting the US and Denmark to work together to defeat China’s efforts to engage with Greenland (for example, by pressuring Greenland to dally on issuing visas to commercial delegations). That intervention seems to have added fuel to interest across several US agencies.

• However, the US — increasingly alarmed at Chinese geopolitical ambitions and rising Russian activity around the Arctic — was also in the thick of a serious military reorientation and reorganization, notably the reinstatement of the 2nd Fleet, which placed the North Atlantic under a newly unified command.

• This flurry of US activity seriously upset Russia, which began to move more aggressively. Coincidentally…

• …Spring 2019 was when the action began, notably:

  1. “At a dinner with associates last spring, Mr. Trump said someone had told him at a roundtable that Denmark was having financial trouble over its assistance to Greenland, and suggested that he should consider buying the island” (WSJ) — who?
  2. US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas “met with the Danish ambassador and I proposed that they sell Greenland to us” (Talk Business & Politics, a small but legit Arkansas new outlet) — on nat-sec grounds, he claimed, but where did he get that idea?
  3. (3) The US DOD conducted a complex, expensive aerial survey of “3,000 square kilometers in [Greenland’s] southwestern Gardar province” (Reuters) — where did that idea come from?

As Summer and Fall pass, these initial efforts begin to come to fruition: nameless voices allegedly scattered through government bureaucracies are “whispering” about it, Sen. Cotton is pushing it, Trump is toying with it in public, and foreign officials are falling into all the familiar traps: reacting with decidedly undiplomatic zingers, amplifying the ideas they oppose, and squabbling amongst themselves. (Well, not quite squabbling, but revealing fissures — about Danish “neglect,” about whether Greenland is first- or “third-world,” about autonomist movements, etc).

The real excitement came in the last week of October and the first weeks of November 2019, when a forged letter — supposedly from Greenland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ane Lone Bagger to Tom Cotton — hit the news. How it hit seems strange. The letter was reported on by journalists in Denmark first — odd, since presumably it traveled from Greenland’s capital to the US Capitol. (2) But those journalists said they sourced it on Reddit and, as if it were equally self-evident, “Indybay”: “The material has been circulating on the major US social media sites Reddit and Indybay for a few days” (per DeepL: “Materialet har i nogle dage cirkuleret på de store amerikanske sociale medier Reddit og Indybay”).

But Indybay is far from self-evident. The site, purportedly maintained by the San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center, is an odd mix. OT1H its homepage rolls along into 2025, listing current leftist/progressive events in the Bay Area. OT0H its mailing list archive petered out in Jan 2019, and its “about” page was last updated “Mon, Dec 8, 2003 7:34PM” — over twenty years ago. The SFBAIMC’s Wikipedia entry has fallen into neglect, with just fifty edits since May 2006. 🧐 🤔

It seems safe to say that an Indymedia-affiliated site in the Bay Area that made it through the 2008 economic meltdown, Occupy, four years of Trump, BLM, metoo, Covid, and Israel/Gaza without a single sign of self-reflection is at best a zombie and at worst a sham; and it sheds a much more jaundices light on its current events listings, whose unsigned, rote professional polish hardly suggests a vibrant or diverse community — or, really, any community at all. (This account aligns with a Nov 2019 analysis published by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), which details how interest in the forged letter spread after Reddit and Indybay.)

So, to recap the story so far: Greenland’s Foreign Minister sent a letter to a far-right US Senator from Arkansas, which somehow found its way to a decades-old “anarchist” website in the ultra-connected Bay Area, and then to Reddit, and then to some enterprising Danish journalists who wrote it up. Cool story, bro. 👍🏼 But, um, no. The consensus — among intelligence agencies, political observers, forensic analysts, and more — is that the letter is almost certainly a Russian forgery, and this timeline seems to support that.

In my view (for what it’s worth), the letter isn’t interesting. What is curious is who, in and around the Trump administration, started whispering about Greenland in the Spring of 2019. In theory, that question can be answered empirically: So-and-so person at such-and-such time and place to this-or-that audience. In practice, I doubt it can be answered thoroughly. Why they started whispering about it is a categorically different question, one that quickly leads down two rabbit holes that have hobbled US politics: conspiratorial speculation (the “real” reason people did this or that) and cynical judicial helplessness (did they really “know”? what does it mean to “know”? does the text of the Constitution doesn’t actually use the word “know”? etc, etc).

I did this all in an evening out of curiosity, so if you want a bulletproof case you’ll need to look elsewhere. My hot take, which I’m 99% sure is right even if it isn’t thoroughly grounded in evidence: (1) Russia is exploiting a nexus of issues, (2) to manipulate Trump, (3) into a policy of economic and possibly military threats, (4) in order to cause a meltdown in NATO. I don’t think Trump understands this, but I do think Cotton does understand it.

EDIT 1 (2025-01-12)

Between Elon Musk, J. D. Vance’s daddy Peter Thiel, and Ken Howery (ambassador to Sweden under Trump 1 and nominated for ambassador to…wait for it…Denmark under Trump 2! see the timeline below), it’s looking more and more like we should start to lose the scare quotes around “Paypal mafia.” I don’t think there’s any doubt they have a hand in the Greenland stuff, maybe a big one; but it would be a big mistake to assume, on that basis, Russia isn’t involved. On the contrary: both/and is how corruption works; either/or is how professional integrity works.

EDIT 2 (2025-01-13)

Russian TV is awash in bombastic rubbish, but this noise about splitting the US and Russia splitting Greenland seems pretty telling.

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Timeline

1951: Wikipedia: “The United States ‘accepted the legal obligation to defend against any attack’ on Greenland in a 1951 treaty with Denmark.”

1952 Sep: Wikipedia: Thule Air Base (later Pituffik Space Base — see 2023 below) “was constructed in secret under the code name Operation Blue Jay [was] made public.” The project “is said to have been comparable in scale to the enormous effort required to build the Panama Canal.” And an curious note: “On 16 June 1951, the base was accidentally discovered by French cultural anthropologist and geographer Jean Malaurie and his Inuit friend Kutikitsoq, on their way back from the geomagnetic North Pole.”

(No big deal, just the entire second half of the twentieth century passes… 😂)

2005: Clingendael Report (“Presence before power China’s Arctic strategy in Iceland and Greenland”): Greenland’s premier, Hans Enoksen, visits China.

2011: Wikipedia: US deactivates the US Navy’s Second Fleet “when the US government believed that Russia’s military threat had diminished….”

2011: Clingendael Report: Greenland’s minister for industry and natural resources visits China.

2012: Clingendael Report: China’s interest in Greenland’s natural resources confirmed by visit of China’s Minister for Land and Resources, Xu Shaoshi.

2013: Clingendael Report: Greenland repeals law banning mining of radioactive and rare earth elements to diversify its economy, raising cooperation with China.

2013: International Institute for Strategic Studies: China gains Observer Nation status on the Arctic Council.

2017 Jan 12: Financial Times publishes an “investigation” called “How China rules the waves: Beijing has spent billions expanding its ports network to secure sea lanes and establish itself as a maritime power,” which doesn’t specifically mention Greenland but provides larger context, including a global map.

2017 Nov 2: China Daily: “China and Russia should jointly develop and cooperate on the use of the North Polar sea route and build a Silk Road on the ice, President Xi Jinping told visiting Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday. Close to 20 bilateral cooperative documents were signed on Wednesday in fields such as investment, energy, aerospace and finance.”

2017, late: Global Construction Review (“Greenland ignores Danish concerns and shortlists China Communications for $420m airport projects”): “At the end of last year Kim Kielsen, Greenland’s prime minister, visited Beijing and met representatives of China Communications Construction and the Beijing Construction Engineering Group as well as the Export-Import Bank of China.”

2018: Wikipedia: US reactivates the US Navy’s Second Fleet “amid renewed tensions between NATO and Russia.” Navysite.de: The fleet’s area of responsibility — which formerly extends from the southernmost point of Greenland to the Yucatan Peninsula, and covers the entire US Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast — is expanded to cover “the Atlantic Ocean from the North Pole to the South Pole and from the shores of the United States to the west coast of Europe,” as well as “along both coasts of South America and part of the west coast of Central America.”

2018: Territory, Politics, Governance: China unveils a new “Arctic Policy,” consisting of “three key forms of tourism resources: individuals, infrastructure and data,” including “the development of ‘tourism resources’.” PRC government: text of the policy.

2018 Jan: Global Construction Review: “In January [China] published plans to develop a ‘Polar Silk Road’ to halve sailing time between Asia and Europe. The route has been made feasible by the retreat of Arctic sea ice, but as yet there are few ports available to sustain the route.”

2018 Jan 18: Global Construction Review: “China has published plans for a ‘polar silk road’, taking advantage of Arctic ice melting to halve the time it takes for a container to reach Rotterdam from Shanghai.”

2018 Mar 3: Global Construction Review: “A high-ranking Danish government official in Copenhagen told Reuters, on condition of anonymity, that the government was ‘deeply concerned’,” saying “China has no business in Greenland. Denmark has a big responsibility to live up to with regards to our closest ally, the US.” GCR also notes “work on the airports is due to begin in October.”

2018 Mar 22: Reuters: “In 2016, the Danish government on direct orders from Washington prevented a Chinese investor from buying a former marine station in southern Greenland….” It also notes that “a U.S. State Department official said that ‘we welcome efforts by all countries, including China, to enhance investment in high-quality infrastructure development,’ but urged that ‘development financing should not be predatory or result in unsustainable debt.’” Defense News reports, “At the time, Danish officials were quoted anonymously in the press, saying they had resisted the deal as a favor to its longtime American ally.”

2018 May 3: The Economist: “In recent years Chinese state-backed firms have been pouring money into Greenland’s rare-earth mines. One Chinese-financed mine in Greenland’s south is reckoned to contain the world’s second-largest deposits of rare earths. Greenland is open to investments regardless of where they come from, explains [Prime Minister] Kim Kielsen. Chinese money is helping Greenland to reduce its reliance on Danish subsidies, thus boosting the pro-independence cause. That is also why Mr Kielsen is keen to attract Chinese tourists. In October he led a delegation to China and gave an impassioned pitch about Greenland’s natural wonders. As Greenland drifts away from its old colonial master, it might need to worry about becoming a vassal state of another.”

2018 Sep 7: Defense News publishes an in-depth analysis piece, “How a potential Chinese-built airport in Greenland could be risky for a vital US Air Force base.” According to later Arctic Today piece (see below) that mentions it, one commenter asked, “So where are the US firms? How come no US based firms are out there competing head to head for these contracts? China offers billions to underdeveloped nations for their development while we retrench while calling them shith*les. We call our long time allies ‘foes’ then whine when they look elsewhere for allies. What is wrong with us?”

2018 Sep 13: Arctic Today: “in exchange for 700 million Danish kroner ($109 million), Greenland would allow Denmark a 33% stake in Kalaallit Airports, the state-owned company formed to renovate, own, and operate airports in three locations…. The agreement, which gives Copenhagen a stake in the first two airports, means that the Chinese company involved in the bidding process for the construction works will now likely not be chosen…. While it is still possible that China Communications Construction Company…could be awarded the construction contract, the fact that Copenhagen will front a large portion of the required funds reflects its desire to avoid Greenland falling into the debilitating debt trap that is becoming all too common with Chinese infrastructure projects in which Chinese banks loan the money for construction and Chinese companies carry it out. The Greenlandic Parliament’s pro-Danish decision has defused possible international controversy between the U.S., Denmark, and Greenland over Chinese investment in an island closely guarded by the U.S. military thanks to its air base at Thule/[Pituffik]. At the same time, it has has set off a political firestorm in Nuuk. As one English-language Danish newspaper described, ‘An apparently generous gesture from Denmark has ended up provoking a political crisis.’ Pro-independence Partii Naleraq quit the coalition in opposition to Denmark’s involvement, which they see more of as an imposition rather than a magnanimous move. In a letter, Partii Naleraq reportedly explained that they ‘do not want to be a part of’ Danish involvement in Greenland’s politics. PN’s hasty departure means that Prime Minister Kim Kielsen’s Siumut party must scramble to form a new government, as it has lost its parliamentary majority by three seats.”

2018 Sep 13: Arctic Today: The same piece notes: “As U.S. companies have been sitting on the sidelines in much of the developing world — especially in Africa, where not just China but also Russia is increasingly making inroads — the Chinese bidder for Greenland’s €383 million airport overhaul, CCCC, has grown to be one of the world’s largest construction firms. Its expansion has occurred despite being blacklisted by the World Bank from 2009–2017 over fraudulent practices on a road improvement project in the Philippines. According to its 2017 annual report, last year, CCCC signed contracts for overseas infrastructure construction projects worth a total of $32 billion. It even attempted to purchase Canada’s third-largest engineering firm, Aecon, though the Canadian government ultimately blocked the acquisition on national security grounds. In addition, while CCCC is largely state-owned — Beijing holds a two-thirds stake — its remaining stakeholders include Merrill Lynch, BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase. Thus, CCCC already owns and is partly owned by North American companies. (emphasis added)

2018 Nov: Science Direct: After 40 years of debate(!), Greenlandic Parliament votes to expand aviation as a crucial strategy for mobility within the island, including extending runways at two airports, in Nuuk and Ilulissat, and more.

2019 Feb 10: The Wall Street Journal runs a story seemingly out of the blue on “How the Pentagon Countered China’s Designs on Greenland.” It details US concerns that China was trying to lure Greenland into a debt trap that could be used as leverage to negotiate more influence and expanded claims, as it had with Sri Lanka. It also notes, “In an unusual step, the U.S. Defense Department has offered to chip in with airport infrastructure that would help both civilian and military or surveillance planes land on the country’s coast.”

2019 March: International Institute for Strategic Studies: The EU formally declared Beijing a “strategic rival.”

2019 May: Arctic Today: “Vice Adm. Andrew “Woody’ Lewis, commander of the U.S. 2nd Fleet, announced that the reinvigorated fleet had reached initial operational capability and will be fully operational by the end of this year.” Lewis also stated “that the increasing roles of both Russia and China in the region “played a part” in 2nd Fleet’s re-creation,” and that he “is particularly concerned about Russia’s maritime presence in the region.”

2019 May 24: New York Times publishes “Latest Arena for China’s Growing Global Ambitions: The Arctic” surveying China’s activities across a number of Arctic- and Arctic-adjacent countries.

2019 May 7: Arctic Council: Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting: US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expresses diplomatic concern about China’s involvement in Greenland on environmental grounds: “the Trump administration shares your deep commitment to environmental stewardship. In fact, it’s one reason Chinese activity, which has caused environmental destruction in other regions, continues to concern us in the Arctic. The Arctic has always been a fragile ecosystem, and protecting it is indeed our shared responsibility. But once again, the keys are indeed trust and responsibility.”

2019 Jun 4: Sermitsiaq — an established Greenlandic newspaper — reports that the China Communication Construction Company (CCCC) withdrew from airport projects in Nuuk and Ilulissat. The same source also reports that US “Ambassador Carla Sands made it clear under Future Greenland that the United States perceives any Chinese activity in Greenland as a possible security risk. ‘The Chinese China Communication Construction Company may have a fear that the US and the Danish governments may have put a political pressure on Naalakkersuisut and Grønland’s Self-Government and the self-governed Kalaallit Airports so that the CCCC would not be able to win the task of building the airports in Nuuk and Ilulissat,” [s]he said. [“]It has probably been in the consideration of the CCCC when they now withdraw from the bidding round, says Jon-Rahbek Clemmensen….”

2019 Jun 5: High North News: CCCC pulled out because “it is not able to bid on equal terms with other companies as it has problems acquiring visas for its staff. The company has already faced difficulties in trying to get visas for the engineers meant to go to Greenland to finish the tender.”

2019 Aug 16: The Wall Street Journal reports “in meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.” The story also advances a framing two levels deep in anonymity: “advisers” say that unnamed sources “outside the White House” describe “purchasing Greenland as an Alaska-type acquisition for Mr. Trump’s legacy.” It continues:

At a dinner with associates last spring, Mr. Trump said someone had told him at a roundtable that Denmark was having financial trouble over its assistance to Greenland, and suggested that he should consider buying the island, according to one of the people. “What do you guys think about that?” he asked the room, the person said. “Do you think it would work?” The person described the question less as a serious inquiry than as a joke meant to indicate “I’m so powerful I could buy a country,” noting that since Mr. Trump hadn’t floated the idea at a campaign rally yet, he probably wasn’t seriously considering it. The person believed the president was interested in the idea because of the island’s natural resources and because it would give him a legacy akin to President Dwight Eisenhower ‘s admission of Alaska into the U.S. as a state.

2019 Aug 16: Sky News also publishes the story “Trump ridiculed over plan to buy Greenland — ‘Final proof that he has gone mad’,” citing a story by Reuters but not the Wall Street Journal’s story, which might suggest the SN and WSJ stories were deliberately seeded separately?

2019 Aug 18: Arctic Today: Trump said, “Denmark essentially owns [Greenland]. We’re very good allies with Denmark, we protect Denmark like we protect large portions of the world. So the concept came up and I said, ‘Certainly I’d be interested.’ Strategically it’s interesting and we’d be interested but we’ll talk to them a little bit. It’s not No. 1 on the burner, I can tell you that.”

2019 Aug 19: The Guardian: “Trump tweeted an edited photo of a coastal town dotted with colorful homes — dwarfed by a golden skyscraper bearing his name,” and said “I promise not to do this to Greenland!”

2019 Aug 21: Talk Business & Politics, an Arkansas business news site, reported that Sen. Tom Cotton said at a local business forum, “several months ago, I met with the Danish ambassador and I proposed that they sell Greenland to us,” on the grounds that it’s “vital to our [the US’s] national security,” adding that “anyone who can’t see that is blinded by Trump derangement.” He also claimed that “in 2018 the Chinese government sought to essentially bribe the local government of Greenland into allowing it to build three military bases there,“ but that “efforts by Trump administration and some in Congress convinced Denmark to weigh in at the last minute and block the deal.”

2019 Aug 22: USA Today: Sen. Tom Cotton claims, “I told the president, ‘You should buy it as well,’ Cotton said. He noted that Trump “heard that from me and from some other people as well.’”

2019 Aug 23: Arctic Today: “Why President Trump’s idea to buy Greenland is not a joke in Denmark and Greenland” surveys history and issues involved in Trump’s “proposal” to buy Greenland.

2019 Aug 24: USA Today: Walter Berbrick, founding director of the U.S. Naval War College’s Arctic Studies Group, “a former senior adviser to the special representative for the Arctic region at the State Department” and “who has consulted with U.S. government officials on increasing ties to Greenland but spoke in his personal capacity,” tells USA Today, “Whoever holds Greenland will hold the Arctic. It’s the most important strategic location in the Arctic and perhaps the world.” The same story states that “Trump’s incarnation of the idea [of buying Greenland] has been discussed within parts of the government for quite some time, according to a senior administration official, though it’s not clear how seriously. Another administration official said that he had heard ‘whispers’ about the idea of purchasing Greenland on the staff level for some time and that one well-connected political appointee in the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, which typically handles Arctic issues, had been ‘interested in seeing this happen for a while.’”

2019 Aug 26: New York Times: US Senator Tom Cotton publishes a New York Times opinion piece, “We Should Buy Greenland,” with the dek “Trump isn’t the only one to recognize the country’s strategic importance. Beijing does, too.” In it, he says that “China attempted in 2016 to purchase an old American naval base in Greenland, a move the Danish government. Two years later, China was back at it, attempting to build three airports on the island, which failed only after intense lobbying of the Danes by the Trump administration.”

2019 October 10: Reuters (“U.S. and Greenland partner to map Greenland’s resources”): “The U.S. military has conducted an aerial survey of Greenland to assess the vast arctic island’s mineral potential as part of an agreement between the two governments, a top U.S. diplomat said on Wednesday. The memorandum of understanding for cooperating on developing the mineral sector there was inked in June before a diplomatic flap between the United States and Denmark….” The survey focused on “3,000 square kilometers in the territory’s southwestern Gardar province.” US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Frank Fannon says the survey was “quite costly and technology intensive…. We had the navy there to shoot a hyperspectral survey, to basically use overflight technology to better understand the resource endowment. That creates data room where the U.S. Geological Survey would be brought in to help interpret the data and share with the Greenlanders what the potential resource endowment might be.”

2019 Oct 23: Politiken.dk: The date of an apparently forged letter from Greenland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ane Lone Bagger to US Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

2019 Nov 11: Politiken.dk reports on the forged letter, saying “it also appears that the United States secretly supports a swift Greenland referendum on independence. Ane Lone Bagger explains that ‘the costs of financing the event and related activities have exceeded the planned level. That’s why she’s asking for a 30-percent increase in the previously agreed U.S. contribution…. ‘I’m asking you for help in resolving this relationship at the highest level.’” The story also states, “the letter and an accompanying text can be found on the Internet under the title ‘Greenland. How much does a trade with the devil cost?’ The material has for some days been circulating on the major American social media Reddit and Indybay. The forged letter appears as a kind of annex to a post on Indybay, where a user warns Greenland against knocking a trade off with the Devil.” The user is identified as Kirk Miller, “but it is not immediately possible to find more information about his background” or the origins of his insights. It also notes the mention of “a Danish prince named Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe“ who (the letter claims) “believes that one should ‘support the solution that the Greenlanders consider to be best’”; it identifies Schaumburg-Lippe as a distant relation of the Danish royal family, and notes that “he resides in Germany and does not have any weight or reputation in Greenland, and he has apparently never interfered in the debate about Arctic relations.” It quotes Steen Kjærgaard of the Danish Defence Academy as pointing out that (1) the letter was dated “a few days after a high-ranking American delegation has been in Greenland’s capital” to demonstrate “the US’s willingness to invest in trade relations, infrastructure and education in Greenland,” and that “the timing of this letter is completely sublime [because] this is a very serious issue in Denmark and in the Realm….Denmark is one of America’s closest allies, and being able to divide Denmark and the United States will be a great achievement. Here, the Arctic is used for a larger goal, namely division in the West and within Nato.”

2019 Nov 12: High North News: “A fake letter alleging to be from Greenland’s foreign minister to a Republican US Senator plays the main role in what appears to be an attempt to strain the relationship between” Greenland and the US. It notes that the forgery proposes that “Greenland shall hold status as an ‘organized alliance-free territory’ following an American proposal, and that the USA [would] secretly support a soon-to-be referendum in Greenland over independence.” It also presents Greenland’s Foreign Minister as asking for “a 30-percent raise of a US financial contribution” to the country.

2019 Nov 13: BBC Monitoring reports that “a fund-raising letter supposedly sent by Greenland’s foreign minister to an American senator was revealed as a fake, days before she travelled to Washington to meet the US Secretary of State.” The story says, “It’s thought that he was chosen as the recipient because he said in August that it was his idea that President Trump should offer to buy Greenland from Denmark,” and quotes “Greenlandic MP Aleqa Hammond [who chairs\ the Foreign and Security Policy Committee…that Moscow is behind it. Greenland being a ‘hot topic’ has bothered Russia, she said. A recent visit by a US delegation ‘bothered them in many ways’, and “when Denmark and Greenland agree on a possible agreement with the Americans, it bothers the Russians some more’.”

2019 Dec: Wikipedia: Denmark “approved a Trump administration request for a consulate in Greenland.”

2020: Wikipedia: “In 2020, Thule Air Base was formally transferred to the United States Space Force.”

2020 Feb 25: The International Institute for Strategic Studies published a report, “Understanding China’s Arctic Activities.” The report states that in addition to offering to “renovate Greenland’s airports and to expand exploration for minerals,” it “had proposed establishing a research station in Greenland, as well as a satellite ground station [and] has built a satellite station in northern Sweden and invested in Finland as part of its Polar Silk Road initiative.”

2020 Jun 11: The National Post: US Consulate opens in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.

2022 Jan 13: Reuters: “The report cited a 2019 incident of a forged letter purporting to be from Greenland’s foreign minister to a U.S. senator saying an independence referendum was in the offing.” The story also notes that a Danish Security and Intelligence Service report “said NATO member Denmark’s active international role, the openness of its society and high levels of technological knowledge all served to make it “an attractive target of foreign intelligence activities.”

2022 Jan 14: Julia Davis of Russian Media Monitor publishes a copy of the forged letter on Xwitter.

2023 Apr 6: Wikipedia: US Thule Air Base “renamed Pituffik Space Base, reflecting its status as a Space Force base and the native name for the region.

2020 April 23: ABC News: The Trump administration announced it “will provide a $12 million aid package to Greenland for economic development, raising eyebrows in Denmark….” The funds are for “‘sustainable’ economic development…focused in particular on developing energy and natural resources, expanding educational exchange, and boosting Greenland’s fledgling tourism industry.”

2024 Dec 22: Trump transition team(?): Trump nominates Ken Howery as ambassador to Denmark, noting “Ken is a World renowned entrepreneur, investor, and public servant, who served our Nation brilliantly during my First Term as U.S. Ambassador to Sweden, where he led efforts to increase Defense, Security, and Economic Cooperation between our Countries. As a Co-Founder of PayPal and venture capital fund, Founders Fund, Ken turned American Innovation and Tech leadership into Global success stories, and that experience will be invaluable in representing us abroad. For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

(Then comes lots of current events you can research yourself.)

2025 Jan 9: Reuters: Denmark’s Defence Minister Troels Lund Pulse is quoted as saying, “We have neglected for many years to make the necessary investments in ships and in aircraft that will help monitor our kingdom, and that is what we are now trying to do something about.” It also quotes Nordic Defence Analysis Jens Wenzel as saying, “I think that the Americans are quite concerned that Russia could actually launch or initiate a major attack against the United States, and that could be done from the Russian side….There is no real monitoring of the airspace in Greenland, it is largely a free-for-all.” The story also note that Trump’s ambassador-designate to Denmark, Ken Howery, was “a co-founder of PayPal…a member of the ‘PayPal Mafia’ of former workers and executives at the digital finance firm that includes prominent Trump supporters Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.”

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A Couple of bonus links

Thorsten Borring Olesen (Nordics.info, at Aarhus University), “Buying Greenland? Trump, Truman and the ‘Pearl of the Mediterranean’’ (2019 Sep 10) (link)

Rebecca Jane Morgan, “Trump in Retrospect — Revisiting Trump’s “Greenland thing’” (202 Jun 29) (link)