NUUK – When U.S. President Donald Trump first urged buying Greenland in 2019, folks thought it was only a joke. Nobody is laughing now.
Trump’s interest in Greenland, restated vigorously quickly after he returned to the White Home in January, comes as a part of an aggressively “America First” international coverage platform that features calls for for Ukraine handy over mineral rights in change for continued navy support, threats to take management of the Panama Canal, and ideas that Canada ought to turn out to be the 51st U.S. state.
Why Greenland?
Growing worldwide tensions, world warming and the altering world economic system have put Greenland on the coronary heart of the controversy over world commerce and safety, and Trump wants to make sure that the U.S. controls this mineral-rich nation that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.
Who does Greenland belong to?
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a long-time U.S. ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Denmark has additionally acknowledged Greenland’s proper to independence at a time of its selecting.
Amid considerations about international interference and calls for that Greenlanders should management their very own future, the island’s prime minister known as early an parliamentary election for Tuesday.
The world’s largest island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is residence to about 56,000 principally Inuit individuals who till now have been largely ignored by the remainder of the world.
Why are different nations taken with Greenland?
Local weather change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for worldwide commerce and reigniting the competitors with Russia, China and different nations over entry to the area’s mineral sources.
“Allow us to be clear: we’re quickly coming into the Arctic Century, and its most defining function can be Greenland’s meteoric rise, sustained prominence and ubiquitous affect,’’ mentioned Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Analysis and Coverage Initiative.
“Greenland — positioned on the crossroads between North America, Europe and Asia, and with monumental useful resource potential — will solely turn out to be extra strategically vital, with all powers nice and small in search of to pay courtroom to it. One is kind of eager to go a step additional and purchase it.”
The next are a few of the elements which are driving U.S. curiosity in Greenland.
Arctic competitors
Following the Chilly Warfare, the Arctic was largely an space of worldwide cooperation. However local weather change, the hunt for scarce sources and rising worldwide tensions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are as soon as once more driving competitors within the area.
Strategic significance
Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with greater than two-thirds of its territory mendacity inside the Arctic Circle. That has made it essential to the protection of North America since World Warfare II, when the U.S. occupied Greenland to make sure that it didn’t fall into the arms of Nazi Germany and to guard essential North Atlantic transport lanes.
The U.S. has retained bases in Greenland for the reason that battle, and the Pituffik House Base, previously Thule Air Power Base, helps missile warning, missile protection and house surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO. Greenland additionally guards half of what’s generally known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Hole, the place NATO screens Russian naval actions within the North Atlantic.
Pure sources
Greenland has massive deposits of so-called uncommon earth minerals which are wanted to make all the pieces from computer systems and smartphones to the batteries, photo voltaic and wind applied sciences that can energy the transition away from fossil fuels. The U.S. Geological Survey has additionally recognized potential offshore deposits of oil and pure gasoline.
Greenlanders are eager to develop the sources, however they’ve enacted strict guidelines to guard the surroundings. There are additionally questions concerning the feasibility of extracting Greenland’s mineral wealth due to the area’s harsh local weather.
Local weather change
Greenland’s retreating ice cap is exposing the nation’s mineral wealth and melting sea ice is opening up the as soon as legendary Northwest Passage via the Arctic.
Greenland sits strategically alongside two potential routes via the Arctic, which would cut back transport occasions between the North Atlantic and Pacific and bypass the bottlenecks of the Suez and Panama canals. Whereas the routes aren’t prone to be commercially viable for a few years, they’re attracting consideration.
Chinese language curiosity
In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to achieve extra affect within the area. China has additionally introduced plans to construct a “Polar Silk Highway” as a part of its world Belt and Highway Initiative, which has created financial hyperlinks with nations around the globe.
Then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s transfer, saying: “Do we would like the Arctic Ocean to rework into a brand new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?” A Chinese language backed uncommon earth mining challenge in Greenland stalled after the native authorities banned uranium mining in 2021.
Independence
The laws that prolonged self-government to Greenland in 2009 additionally acknowledged the nation’s proper to independence beneath worldwide regulation. Opinion polls present a majority of Greenlanders favor independence, although they differ on precisely when that ought to happen. The potential for independence raises questions on exterior interference in Greenland that might threaten U.S. pursuits within the nation.
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