America's Talking - Trump Pushes Ahead With Plan to Buy Greenland, Won’t Rule Out Using Force

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

(The Center Square) – President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that U.S. economic security depends on controlling Greenland and the Panama Canal. Trump's comments came the same day his son, Don Jr., landed on the arctic island. "Don Jr. and my Reps landing in Greenland," the president-elect wrote on Truth Social. "The reception has been great. They, and the Free World, need safety, security, strength, and PEACE! This is a deal that must happen. MAGA. MAKE GREENLAND GREAT AGAIN!" As Trump prepares to return to the White House for a second term, he has once again brought up the idea of buying or otherwise taking control of the autonomous territory, which is part of Denmark. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, Chief Content Officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, January 10th. President-elect Donald Trump has raised eyebrows with his fascination over the U.S. perhaps buying Greenland, taking back control of the Panama Canal, and inviting Canada to join the United States as its 51st state. Joining me to discuss this is Steve Wilson, regional editor for the Center Square.

Steve, I think in particular, Trump's fascination with Greenland is a head scratcher for many of our listeners. But he does have strategic reasons. Tell us why. It's a twofold, actually a threefold thing. Number one, Greenland has vast reserves of rare earth materials, which as you well know are used in electric vehicles, semiconductors, other things. It's also got vast reserves of least. lithium, which is important for batteries, also important for power transmission lines. And it's got uranium. And there is the strong possibility that there is offshore oil in Greenland.

So you've got a nice resource-based issue there. Also, all the great powers of the world now are focused on the Arctic. And obviously, Greenland is a big piece of real estate in the, the Arctic. During the Cold War, you had what was called the Gaiyuk, which was Greenland, Iceland, and Great Britain. And you had, that was what they call a choke point, where the Soviet submarines would try to break into the Atlantic and do various mischief. And we had like sonar nets on the bottom of the ocean that are designed to protect that barrier. Having Greenland either under more U.S. control or expanded bases would be ideal for this great power competition.

The U.S. does have a base on Greenland. Is that correct? They do. It used to be called Tully. It's been changed to an Inuit name that, unfortunately, I cannot pronounce. I'm not even going to try it either, Steve. But how did that come about? So during the Cold War, we needed a base to do several things. We needed to build a radar to detect Soviet ICBM's intercominental ballistic missiles coming over the North Pole. And the best place to put it was Greenland. And they put it up there and it's in the farther north part of Greenland. And they can only get a supply ship in there once a year.

Also, they built a big runway there, big enough to handle our biggest strategic bombers. Because you remember during the Cold War, during the 50s and 70s, 60s, we would have planes on airborne alert. And the Strategic Air Command, which no longer exists, they had this concept of dispersing the bombers because they knew the Soviets knew where our bases were and they were going to be priority targets. So they would disperse bombers out to Greenland. And of course, I don't think you have to tell strategic Air Command veterans that they probably didn't want to go up there and have their bombers based out of that base. You mentioned that other countries or the rest of the world has been focused on the Arctic.

Particularly you're talking about Russia and China to adversaries of the United States. What's their fascination with the Arctic? Well, the thing is, if you remember back in the day, I think it was Cabot, when he found Canada, was looking for the Northwest Passage. It's a shortcut. You go around the top of the world. I mean, you're taking a lot of time off ship. shipping. And whoever controls that once, if the ice pack can lift enough to, it can shrink

enough to where they can actually get ships in there, have ice breakers go through, which is one of the reasons we need more ice breakers. You can actually send cargo ships going through there, wool tankers. You're saving money. You're saving time. It's, it's just, it's such an important area. And also, the Arctic is very rich in like minerals, probably oil wealth. I mean, you know all about Alaska. I think this could be a game changer, but I think it's also a negotiating tactic. I don't think we're going to buy Greenland. I don't think we have the money. And I don't think the Danes would sell Greenland to us. But I think this is a start, low, go high type negotiating tactic from President Trump. You mentioned the Danes. Denmark, Greenland currently is an autonomous territory.

of a Denmark. So you think this is a negotiating tactic to just gain leverage on Denmark, to have Denmark, okay, we're not going to sell Greenland to you, but we will allow the U.S. to, what, build another base or what? Well, it's interesting. It took, it would probably take hundreds of billions of dollars to build the base like they have now, that they built in the 50s, and it took a Herculean effort. I mean, we're talking Panama Canal worthy effort to build that base up north. But what I think Trump's aim is he wants to get more mining contracts so we can get in on those rare earth materials, which, as you well know, everything has microprocessors. We're going more towards electric cars for good or for ill. And we need those materials.

China has most of them, but if we had Greenland where we could mine some, we could be more of a player in this field. And not to mention the oil, the uranium, the lithium, the lithium. That's a huge thing as well. You mentioned the Panama Canal. In the brief amount of time we have left, Steve, the U.S. once controlled the Panama Canal, the U.S. built the Panama Canal. The late president, Jimmy Carter, who we just laid duress yesterday, again, we're recording this on Friday, January 10th. I buried yesterday, died in late December. He gave away the Panama Canal, but now Trump wants it back. Just briefly tell us why, what's the strategy there? Well, the Chinese have built some infrastructure down there, and I think that it's a strategic

point, just like Greenland, and we need to secure it in some way. I think what he's trying to do is we're not going to invade Panama like we did in 1990, but I think that we're going to invade Panama like we did in 1990, me, but I think what's going to end up happening is we're going to get more American companies to get contracts in there. And this is the start of negotiations, just like with Dreamland. Steve, thank you for joining us today. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.