The Journal. - How Far Will Trump Go to Get Greenland?

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

Over the weekend, President Trump intensified calls for the U.S. to acquire Greenland, a territory controlled by Denmark. WSJ’s Max Colchester explains how European leaders are reacting to Trump’s push for the arctic island, and what might happen next. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - Trump's 'Donroe Doctrine' on Foreign Policy - Greenland Has Tons of Minerals. So Where Are All the Miners? Sign up for WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the weekend, President Trump got a message. It was about Greenland. Trump received a text message from the Prime Minister of Norway, saying, let's have a chat and talk this through, ostensibly. That's our colleague Max Colchester, who's been following the story. And Trump replies with this amazing message, essentially saying that because he was snubbed by the Nobel Prize committee, he's no longer committed to the pursuit of peace

and that he should take control of Greenland. On Monday, the exchange went public. It was just one example of a European leader scrambling to deal with Trump's renewed push to control Greenland, which is part of Denmark. And it raised the question of whether the U.S. would turn to military force to help him get it,

especially after comments the president made earlier this month. We're not going to have Russia, or China occupy Greenland, and that's what they're going to do if we don't. So we're going to be doing something with Greenland either the nice way or the more difficult way. We've seen a significant escalation in the rhetoric around Greenland. We've seen him come out and say, America needs Greenland for national security reasons, and anyone who stands in my way of getting it will be punished.

Now, Europe is wondering if the U.S. is turning from a steadfast ally, into an urgent threat. This is potentially a huge deal, which could see a reshaping of the transatlantic relationship between Europe and America. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power.

I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, January 20th. Coming up on the show, the diplomatic rupture between the U.S. and Europe over Greenland. This episode is brought to you by Fidelity. You check how well something performed forms before you buy it. Why should investing be any different? Fidelity gets that performance matters most. With sound financial advice and quality investment products, they're here to help accelerate

your dreams. Chat with your advisor or visit fidelity.ca.ca. Performance to learn more. Commissions, fees, and expenses may apply. Read the funds or ETSs prospectus before investing. Funds and ETS are not guaranteed. Their values change and past performance may not be repeated. President Trump has had his eye on Greenland since his first term. And since getting reelected, he's put the issue front and center. At first, Trump expressed interest in buying the island. Denmark, which controls Greenland, said it wasn't for sale. Here's Danish Prime Minister Meda Fredrickson.

Greenland is today a part of the kingdom of Denmark. It's a part of our territory. And it's not for sale. European Union leaders stood behind Denmark. And for a while, that was that. But then, early this month, Trump made a big geopolitical move that stunned the world. The U.S. captured Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro.

And that signaled he was serious about a new era of foreign policy. It was in the wake of that action in Venezuela that everyone said, well, if you're willing to take that kind of action in Venezuela, what would you do about Greenland? And he then came back and said, well, actually, yeah, we need Greenland. And so now suddenly this was a U.S. leader who, was willing to take those kinds of risks. Trump frames the argument for U.S. control of Greenland

as an issue of national security. The island is a potentially rich source of rare earth minerals, which are crucial for everything from magnets to chips to defense systems. Trump also points to increased Russian military presence in the Arctic and says that the region will be at the center of the next global power struggle. Look, we have to have it. They have to have this done. They can't protect it. Denmark, they're wonderful people.

And I know the leaders, they're very good people, but they don't even go there. What Trump was saying, and his argument for controlling Greenland, is that essentially the EU and Denmark in particular doesn't have the financial muscle to actually defend Greenland or protect the Arctic. So that's the premise of this. Then on January 15th, the EU sent a contingent of troops to Greenland. The idea, according to Max's reporting, was to show Trump that they were willing and able to defend the region. Troops arriving in Greenland, the Danish military, just posting these images that we're showing you of troops arriving in Greenland. And it wasn't a very big contingent. It was a few dozen soldiers from a handful of European countries. And they arrived. And the way some European officials now see it is that Trump saw that not as a show of strength by Europe as a source.

sort of an antagonistic move by Europe to basically tell him to back off. Just to be clear, so the EU, from their perspective, they were sending a small contingent of troops to Greenland to say, hey, look, we can protect this territory. And now they're feeling like Trump saw that move as an aggressive step by the EU. Yeah, exactly. This was a bunch of European countries trying to flex their muscles, and that actually Trump took this as a slight, as opposed to a real. reassurance. And so what did Trump do in response? So Trump's response was to come out on truth social and threaten the contingent of around seven European countries that sent those

troops with 10% tariffs by February 1st if they continued to stand in his way and stop him purchasing Greenland. And they said that he would escalate that to 25% if they didn't basically relinquish and allow him to buy Greenland and that this would stay in place until the deal was done. European leaders tried to avoid escalating the situation further. On Sunday, the Prime Minister of Norway sent that message to Trump,

expressing his opposition to the tariffs and trying to convince the president to talk it over. French President Emmanuel Macron messaged Trump as well, saying, quote, my friend, we are totally in line on Syria, we can do great things on around, I do not understand what you were doing on Greenland.

But Trump didn't back down, and now Europe is considering retaliating. The EU does have a tool called the anti-coercion instrument or the bazooka, as they call it, whereby they can impose pretty stringent export and import restrictions on a country that tries to economically blackmail them. They could restrict certain products they export to the U.S. They could make it harder for U.S. tech firms to operate here by tightening regulation. They could impose tariffs on certain U.S. products. They could also restrict access to the financial markets here for U.S. firms, which again would be problematic for them.

So they have tools to inflict economic pain on U.S.-based businesses. How big a deal would that be for the U.S. and how risky for Europe? It would be very risky for Europe because obviously the US could respond. And we've seen with Trump he tends to escalate when faced with aggression. So, you know, it's something that has to be calibrated very carefully. And I think it's something that would take a while to deploy. And actually quite a lot of the EU members would probably lobby against extremely stringent measures, fearing blowback on their own economies.

So it's not a silver bullet. But, you know, in the face of some provocation, they're going to have to do something. So if those tariffs that Trump is threatening on February 1st come into play, they can't just sit back and swallow them. So there is increasing pressure on European leaders to reflect that public anger at this move on Greenland. So they will come under pressure to actually bear teeth against the U.S. Trump maintains that the U.S. has a lot to gain from controlling Greenland, from securing the Arctic to mining, rare earth minerals. But is all the geopolitical turmoil worth it?

Max went to Greenland to find out. That's next. You are just in Greenland on a reporting trip. Can you set the scene? Where were you? What was it like on the ground? Yeah, so I flew to Nuke, which is the capital of Greenland, which is on the western coast.

And I think it's hard really to get a sense across, really how big Greenland is and how empty it is. I mean, when you fly over Greenland from Europe at least, it's massive. And it looks like the moon. It's this huge frozen expanse. It's nearly like sci-fi when you approach Nuke. And this is a country which is slightly bigger than Mexico. It is 80% ice.

It has a very tiny population of around 57,000 people who live mainly on the coast, the southwestern coast, because the rest is ice. There is less than 100 miles of paved road in Greenland. So this is a very, like, sparsely populated and for a large part, in hospitable place. And so what does its economy look like? It's a very small one.

The workforce is 29,000 people, which is the size of a tiny town. Its biggest export is shrimp, haliput, and cod. 98% of Greenlanding exports a fish or fishing produce. It's just very small. And efforts to try and build out mines in Greenland haven't really come to much. Because, you know, you've got to go into the middle of some icy tundra, dig a hole, build a road to it, build housing for your workers, build a port, maybe build a runway. It's incredibly expensive.

and then it's such bad weather for a chunk of the year, you can't even access it. So it's not a place that you just turn up and it's waiting to go. Right. It sounds like it would take a lot to get those resources out of there. Exactly. When you get there, you realize that although it's been painted as this potential Eldorado for minerals and whatnot,

when you get there, you realize people basically live off fishing and Danish subsidies. And it's not a gold mine in that sense. It's more of a money pit. In fact, the Danish government spends about a billion dollars a year subsidizing Greenland. They provide the Greenlandic government with what's called a grant every year to help pay for education and whatnot. They also cover health care for the Greenlandic people and they pay for the defense of Greenland. So it's quite an expensive tab for the Danish government to pick up every year.

And has Trump said anything about replacing that if the U.S. takes over Greenland? No, it's not really something he's addressed. And it is this huge welfare state that he would be inheriting that would receive, you know, federal funding-wise. It would receive way more per capita than, say, Alaska or Washington, D.C. does. So it would be, to start with at least, it would be a huge drain on the federal purse to own and run Greenland. As for what Greenlanders think, polls show that a large majority of them have no interest

in becoming an American territory. Over the weekend, anti-U.S. protests took place in nuke and Copenhagen, with people wearing hats that said, make America go away, and chanting Greenland in their native language. While you were there, you had a chance to talk to some locals. What do they tell you? I think many people feel that they actually, they've come to an accommodation with Denmark, which works for them.

And they're wary of just throwing it all up in the air. And of course, America has a bad. record in dealing with indigenous people, and they know that. So I think the idea of letting in a load of mining perspectives from America in return for cash is a model they've seen as not worked for others in the past. So I think they're wary. But Mack says some Greenlanders might be open to hearing Trump out before making up their minds. I was walking around the port in Nuke, and I bumped into a fellow who was walking his dog and started chatting to him. And he invited me into his office. And he works at a shrimp trawler company. And we started chatting and I said, oh, well, what do you think?

Do you think you'd like to be part of America? He said, no, no, no. Absolutely not. But then the more we chatted, the more he said, well, actually, I'd be interested to hear what Trump is offering. What's the deal? And I found that interesting because it's, you know, I know a lot of Greenlanders say they don't want to become American, but I think it would be very interesting to see what happens if Trump did put an offer on the table. That sort of brings us to this week where maybe awkwardly, a lot of the people involved in this dispute are coming together in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum. What can we expect from leaders this week at Davos? I don't know. I just think what we've seen in the last 24 hours has been so kind of

crazy. I mean, you saw these private texts between leaders and Trump. Based on those texts, it seems like the leaders want to have a talk with him and try and work out a solution without escalating. Yeah, I mean, the theme at Davos is the spirit of dialogue. So is it? Well, good luck with that. Yeah, exactly. It sounds like a good theme. Yeah, I mean, I think that's what they'll be hoping. Dialogue. And look, I think they're hoping they can apply the Ukraine playbook to Trump, which is that, you know, he comes out, says something which sends everybody into a tear, and then they all rush over to Washington and chat to him.

And then he actually, he kind of kicks the can a bit down the road, and they walk him back from the cliff a bit. And so I suspect that's what they'll try to do. But I mean, longer term, if what everybody suspects is the case, which is that he just wants Greenland because he wants Greenland, then it's not clear what they can do to stop him because promising extra investment in Greenland or promising extra troops in Greenland

isn't going to cut it if he just really just wants to own Greenland. Ultimately, what does this moment mean for the alliance between the US and Europe? Well, with Trump, it's just so difficult because you get these moments, which it just seems like everything's going to fall apart. And, you know, he creates this chaos. And often people say it's on purpose.

But yeah, I mean, if he goes through with this, then it is existential for the alliance. If he does seek to use economic pressure to coerce Denmark into giving up Greenland, then I think it is going to sharpen a lot of minds in Europe. And I think we're already seeing a slight change in tact. There's a hardening in the rhetoric towards Trump, the previous tactic of promising him huge investment and basically playing along with his charade. I think we'll stop, and they'll have to just essentially tell him some hard truths,

which may result in economic pain being inflicted on Europe. As of today, leaders from around the world have spoken publicly about the Greenland issue. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said Greenland's sovereignty is, quote, non-negotiable. Russia's foreign minister compared Trump's push for Greenland with Moscow's annexation of Crimea, while the Canadian Prime Minister called it a break in the rules-based international order. Still, some European leaders are hopeful that there's room for progress during the Davos Forum. Finland's leader went as far as saying he believes it might be possible to diffuse the Greenland tension by the end of the week.

That's all for today, Tuesday, January 20th. The Journal is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. If you like our show, follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. We're out every weekday afternoon. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.