US military has a long history in Greenland, from mining during WWII to a nuclear-powered Army base built into the ice |
President Donald Trump’s insistence that the U.S. will acquire Greenland “whether they like it or not” is just the latest chapter in a codependent and often complicated relationship between America and the Arctic’s largest island – one that stretches back more than a century but has recently been on the rocks.
On Jan. 14, 2026, U.S., Danish and Greenlandic officials met at the White House to discuss Trump’s intentions. The foreign minister of Denmark later told reporters that while the two sides had a “fundamental disagreement,” they would “continue to talk.” In Congress, Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell also criticized Trump’s threats, saying seizing Greenland would mean “incinerating the hard-won trust of loyal allies in exchange for no meaningful change in U.S. access to the Arctic.”
Although Americans have long pursued policies in Greenland that U.S. leaders considered strategic and economic imperatives, Trump’s approach is more agressive than any previous president. As I recounted in my 2024 book, “When the Ice is Gone,” about Greenland’s environmental, military and scientific history, some prior American ideas for Greenland were little more than engineering fantasies, while others reflected unfettered military bravado.
But today’s world isn’t the same as when the United States last had a significant presence in Greenland, decades ago during the Cold War.
Before charging headlong into this icy island again, the U.S. would be remiss not to learn from past failures and consider how Earth’s rapidly changing climate is fundamentally altering the region.
In 1909, Robert Peary, a U.S. Navy officer, announced that he had won the race to the North Pole – a spectacular claim debated fiercely at the time. Before that, Peary had spent years exploring Greenland by dogsled, often taking what he found.
In 1894, he convinced six Greenlanders to come with him to New York, reportedly promising them tools and weapons in return. Within a few months, all but two of the Inuit had died from diseases.
Peary also took three huge fragments of the Cape York iron meteorite, known to Greenlanders as Saviksoah. It was a unique source of metal that Greenlandic Inuit had used........