By Tom Fowdy
Last week US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Denmark concerning Greenland. According to the White House, the United States will take "full control" over the island's security agreements, and also gain effective economic dominance over the North American adjacent territory with an ability to veto any significant investments in it, thus amounting to a de-facto lock out of Russia and China.
The deal comes amidst the President having previously publicly expressed desires for the United States to take control of the autonomous territory, which legally remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark. His comments provoked tensions with Europe but were ultimately a classic Trumpian negotiating posture designed to force the other side to the table, and subsequently give him leverage to get the concessions he wanted.
This deal is a textbook representation of Trump's foreign policy in his second term. The strategic goals and outcomes effectively tell us everything about what he is seeking to achieve. First of all, as per last year's National Security Strategy document, the Trump administration has centred its foreign policy doctrine upon achieving unparalleled dominance in the Western Hemisphere. In what we might describe as a "backyard policy" or "new Monroe Doctrine," the US is seeking unrivalled dominance over this region with the goal of consolidating military and economic hegemony over it.
In an increasingly multipolar world, where distinct spheres of influence are emerging, the United States has deemed that the Americas itself must be the "core" of its own power and prosperity. This has manifested in the form of foreign policies which seek to assert sovereign power over it, eliminate adversaries and exclude rivals. To list examples of this: The United States forced Panama to usurp the Chinese stake in its canal, the most important strategic waterway in the Americas, it toppled the regime of Nicholas Maduro by capturing him in a precision military operation and transforming Venezuela into a US client state, is working on trying to remove the Cuban government with an aggressively enforced embargo and demanding subjugation, and of course has sought to assert greater control over Greenland.
This leads us to ask, why Greenland exactly? At first glance, Greenland appears to be largely irrelevant to the rest of the world. It is an enormous, vast, and remote landmass that has a smaller population than a British town. With just a few communities centered on the coast, its enormous entirety is a freezing glacier-filled wilderness. There are no roads connecting settlements, and all transportation is via plane or boat. However, the sheer isolation of the island does not mean it is strategically insignificant, and that is why American eyes have fallen upon it, for the Arctic has in fact become a theater of strategic competition between the United States, Russia, and China.
As the very top of the world, a much narrower space than anywhere else, the arctic offers unique advantages in terms of military, satellite, economic and shipping capabilities. Given a great deal of the region is already effectively in Russia's territorial sphere, whose northern coast wraps around it across Eurasia, Greenland subsequently becomes a unique concern to the United States for it serves as a "platform" into North America, and thus it is seen in Washington through the lens of national security. None of this of course is new, nor did it start with Trump, for the US occupied the island in World War II after Nazi Germany overrun Denmark, and in the Cold War the US ultimately agreed a treaty to allow its own troops to be stationed while gaining permission to use its airbases, which is still in force today. This might ask us of course, what exactly has changed then? And why does the US need to "take control, at least in Trump's words?
The answer is the competition is now economic, not just military, and thus occupies a much broader strategic nexus. Greenland, as a remote territory existing in extreme climatic conditions, needs infrastructure, something the US has not been willing to give. This has made it an attractive proposition to China. Beyond Trump's bombastic rhetoric, the past few years has saw a very quiet struggle emerge to effectively block Chinese or impede investments into the island, including controversies the tenders for Nuuk's new airport.
Likewise, as geopolitical struggle has emerged on matters of supply chains and critical minerals, both China and the United States have taken an interest in Greenland, of which has plenty. Thus, the Trump administration has sought to deepen American influence over the island by utilising a playbook which he applies to all economic and diplomatic negotiations: That is to act coercively towards it, demand concessions under the threat of dramatic action, force the other side into negotiations, and then ultimately extract those concessions with a "deal" which is then designed to deliberately lock competitors out.
Thus, while threats to military invade or annex the island were bombastic, in reality Trump had his sights on a deal, and the content of that deal shouldn't really be surprising to anyone. While the agreement has little consequence in terms of military matters, for the US already had agreement to use the island, its true goal was to bring Greenland's economic trajectory into the American sphere of influence and lock China out, all as part of a playbook we see across not only the Western Hemisphere, but in his dealings with many other countries too. The island is not becoming an American territory, but it is being ultimately reminded that it belongs in its backyard, and that will be that.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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