At a news conference in early January 2025, President-elect Donald Trump rambled through a series of grievances and suggestions, including his disdain for wind power and low-flow shower heads and his concern about a possible acquisition of Panama Canal, Canada and Greenland ideas.
Of the latter, he mused, "People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal rights, but if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security."
Negative comments from prominent news outlets were quick to follow. A series of opinion writers believe that such "vague threats" and "messianic promises" are "shocking in their madness" and "a harbinger of a chaotic and stream-of-consciousness presidency."
In the case of Greenland, however, Trump's proposal has been a long time coming. Here, he feels more guilty for saying the quiet parts out loud than territorial ambition.
important air force outpost
In 1823, President James Monroe established the principle that European powers should defer to the United States on Western Hemisphere affairs. While what came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries were primarily intended to safeguard U.S. interests and ambitions in Latin America, they clearly applied to its northern neighbors as well.
After Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940, Secretary of State Cordell Hull made this point clear to the Danish Foreign Minister, claiming that "Greenland belongs to the areas espoused by the Monroe Doctrine."
In 1941, the two countries signed the "Defense of Greenland" agreement, which allowed the United States to "construct, maintain, and operate...landing sites, seaplane facilities, and radio and meteorological facilities." After the war, the United States pressed to retain its bases, a decision formalized by a treaty in 1951.
Read more: 4 reasons why the US might want to buy Greenland – if it was for sale, which it isn’t
For the United States, which had a large military presence in Greenland in the early 1950s, the territory was crucial as an outpost for the Air Force and as a link to the so-called Long-Range Warning Line, which monitored a possible Soviet invasion from the north. situation.
In early 1955, nearly 70 years before Trump's latest speech, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed a more radical solution to protect U.S. interests in the North Atlantic. In a memorandum to the secretary of defense titled "Possible U.S. Acquisition of Greenland," military leaders reiterated the U.S. position: "Geographically, Greenland is part of the Western Hemisphere, and the United States has long believed so."
“As to whether acquiring title to Greenland would give the United States a military advantage,” the memo continued, “the Joint Chiefs of Staff believe it is self-evident that sovereignty is the strongest basis for ensuring a territory and its sovereignty when needed. Resources will be available for military use. U.S. sovereignty over Greenland will eliminate any doubts about unconditional use of the base."
A shorter version appeared on President Dwight Eisenhower's desk a few days later, with its concluding assessment that "from a military point of view, the acquisition of Greenland would be conducive to our military advantage."
This kind of thinking, in 1955 or 2025, casually assumes the universality of U.S. interests and ignores the sovereignty of allies. By the same token, it’s clear that Trump’s proposal is not just another of his often outlandish ambitions, which have been a fixture of U.S. national security for more than 70 years.