Bombshell Revelation! Lexington Institute Explains the Exact Event Which Caused Trump 45 to Want to Acquire Greenland; ADDENDUM: Here Is What Is Wrong with Greenland's Status Quo

In a Fox News interview on Thursday, Denmark's foreign minister [finally admitted that] Trump has a point on China and Russia's threat to Greenland. Indeed, none other than the intelligence service of Denmark itself warned last year about Russian and Chinese military goals toward Greenland and Arctic. 

Let's be very clear: There is only one conclusion to be drawn from this: when Danish politicians, leaders, and media outlets mocked (or demonized) Trump administration leaders while pooh-poohing American worries about the threat from China and Russia as being "delusional", they were lying. They were lying to the Americans, they were lying to the Danes (to their own people), and (perhaps insert "and/or" here) they were quite possibly lying to themselves. 

The Danish politician who compared the USA to China itself, saying one was as bad as the other, is not only lying, he might be batshit bonkers. (Shades of the Cold War, when leftists tried to ridicule the threat posed by the Russians — y'know, the people who, in the words of Sting, "love their children too" — and claimed that the two superpowers "var lige dårlige", were one just as bad as the other. For decades, the Finns and especially the Swedes boasted and bragged about how their countries were non-aligned and neutral, only to suddenly decide, when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, that being allied to Uncle Sam wasn't that bad anyway.) 

Here is the bombshell revelation: 

it turns out that in 2017, according to the Lexington Institute's Rebecca Grant, 

Greenland’s prime minister flew to Beijing and asked China to bankroll new airports, according to The Wall Street Journal. [To its credit,] Denmark stopped the deal. If anything like that happens again, Greenland will be flying a U.S. flag.

This is a bombshell revelation: Indeed, the 2017 attempt sounds like it is undoubtedly what caused Trump-45 to want to acquire Greenland in the first place. Moreover, Beijing's plans to

Put Chinese submarines in the Arctic and U.S. military bases, data centers and more are suddenly in range. The U.S. will do whatever it takes to halt that threat.

Rebecca Grant does add that Denmark [does come] through when it matters. So the Danes are not all bad — which is not a bad thing to hear.

Now, if you are leaning left (whether American, Danish, or other) and wonder what the fuss is about Beijing building airports or, as the Chinese usually do, harbors, in foreign countries a post from last year explains everything: 

You Cannot Understand Trump's Greenland-Panama-Canada Declarations Unless You Recognize the Extent of the China Threat. There is not only the military threat, not excluding that of China building military bases on the tiny islands in the China Sea and, indeed, enlarging them when possible, there is also the "soft" threat, i.e., the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

(By the way, you should check out this blog's China / Greenland posts, notably the one from Thursday on The Donroe Doctrine and Beijing's "Polar Silk Road": Last Month, a Report by None Other than Danish Intelligence Itself Warned About the Russian and Chinese Threat to Greenland and the Arctic (some of which this present post is repeating verbatim).)

The country of Hua Mulan has been engaged in entering into agreements with countries all over the world that turn out to be nothing but a Trojan Horse for penetrating a country's economy.

Beijing approaches a country with limited resources — mainly, but not uniquely, in Asia and Africa — and offers them very good deals with regards to investments. When the country cannot pay its bills, the offer turns out to be a Trojan Horse with Beijing taking over all or part of a city's infrastructure.

But it's not only countries with limited resources; the post about the Extent of the China Threat also mentions the countries in Europe where port terminals have been taken over, partly or wholly, by Beijing — from ports in Greece and Italy to ports in France and Germany.

People around the world were outraged after the 2024 election, when Donald Trump started speaking about his designs on Greenland, Canada, and Panama.

Regarding Panama, what shocked me was not only that the Panama Canal's two harbors on either side of the isthmus were at least partly under Chinese Communist control but that previous administrations had apparently acquiesced to this and, moreover, that no outlet of the mainstream media in any country had seemingly thought that worth reporting. As it happens, it turns out that China is not only trying to junk the Monroe Doctrine, it wants to establish itself as the head of the OAS.

So it sounds like Donald Trump, who is perhaps not as deluded as his critics (both inside the USA and abroad, notably in Denmark itself and in Greenland itself) have been mindlessly repeating, was unwilling to have Trojan Horses on the doorsteps of North America (see also Maduro's Venezuela and its neighboring countries).

If you are still upset about the "paranoia" about  China, recall how, after the Civil War, Secretary of State Seward successfully bought Alaska from the Russians. (Imagine how the Cold War might have turned out had the purchase not been successful and had the Russians or, after 1917, the Soviets, been able during the Cold War to post troops, tanks, and missiles on the North American continent. Maybe all Europeans, and even all North Americans, would be speaking Russian!)

In the second half of the 1860s, Seward also attempted to make two other purchases, both from Denmark: The Virgin Islands and, yes, Greenland. Those did not go through (although there was a vote in Saint Croix, Saint John, and Saint Thomas in which the inhabitants voted in favor of U.S. annexation). Fifty years later, Washington tried again. Why would they try at precisely that time? World War I was raging, a conflict that Denmark remained neutral throughout, however the tiny country could never be sure that one belligerent — to wit, the Kaiser's Germany — would not violate its territory and attempt to invade the country.

The fear, for both the Danes and the Yanks, was that if Denmark were defeated and had to surrender, Germany would have access to Denmark's possessions in the New World. Just like Donald Trump does not want the Chinese as his neighbors (whether troops, sailors, or — alleged — civilians), America in 1917 did not want the Germans as theirs (and don't forget that the Germans weren't even Nazis at that time), especially not a navy base so close to the Panama Canal. And so (after discussions during which America had not even entered the war yet), they agreed on the purchase (by a strange coincidence, exactly 100 years before the Greenland government's attempt to invite Chinese onto their island).

The (happily) unfulfilled fear of German invasion during World War I did turn real 25 years later, when Denmark and Norway became Hitler's second and third targets (after Poland) during World War II. As the Danish government came partly or wholly under German control (it's complicated), the country's ambassador to Washington decided — along with, more or less willingly, the two governors of Greenland (North and South), one of whom was my grandfather's cousin — decided to declare his independence from Copenhagen and turn the island into the hands of Washington. (Meanwhile, Britain decided to take control of Denmark's other Atlantic island, Iceland — which, to everybody's surprise, decided to declare its independence a year or so later.)

Why Can't the Americans Simply Continue with the Status Quo Which Has Worked So Well Until Now?

But all of this begs the question — repeated endlessly in Danish circles — of why the Americans cannot simply be, and remain, satisfied with the status quo, which has worked so well for all parties concerned for the past seven or eight decades.

 

An answer has been provided in a Facebook Post by an author by the name of Michael A Rothman has written on why the 1951 agreement between Washington and Copenhagen doesn't work in the modern age. Pay particularly attention to 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟭 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹 and what, especially with regards to the 2017 attempt to invite the Chinese to Greenland, 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀.

A few readers, incidentally, have proposed what the ultimate solution for Danish-American relations on Greenland proposed should entail.  Here is that by one Jessie Cartlidge:

99 year lease with right of first refusal.. Denmark is guaranteed 10% of mineral rights profits. USA gets full unabridged use of land air and sea with duty to protect and defend greenland as. Sovereign territory.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟭 𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗔𝗚𝗥𝗘𝗘𝗠𝗘𝗡𝗧 — 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗜𝗧 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗘𝗗, 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗜𝗧’𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗧 𝗘𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗚𝗛 𝗔𝗡𝗬𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗘, 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗪𝗛𝗬 𝗪𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗚𝗧𝗢𝗡 𝗜𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗜𝗡𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗕𝗜𝗚𝗚𝗘𝗥
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Let’s rewind to 1951.
The United States and Denmark signed a defense agreement over Greenland during the early Cold War.
Not a land grab.
Not colonialism.
A security pact.
⠀
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲: 
Denmark retained sovereignty.
The United States assumed responsibility for defense.
Thule Air Base became the crown jewel — America’s northernmost strategic installation.
⠀
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗗𝗲𝗻𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗯𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝘀: 
Denmark couldn’t defend Greenland alone.
The Soviet Union was a real threat.
NATO needed early warning and Arctic reach.
⠀
Greenland benefited.
Infrastructure.
Jobs.
Investment.
Protection under the Western security umbrella.
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America benefited even more.
Missile detection.
Radar dominance.
Arctic power projection.
A strategic bridge between North America and Europe.
⠀
That agreement did its job.
It helped win the Cold War without firing a shot.
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𝗕𝘂𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗱: 
That 1951 agreement was built for a world that no longer exists.
⠀
Here’s a thought exercise — and this is where Washington’s head is right now.
⠀
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟭 𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗲𝘀: 
A single primary adversary.
Predictable missile trajectories.
Limited Arctic traffic.
Minimal great-power competition.
A cooperative host nation aligned by default.
⠀
𝗡𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲. 
⠀
𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆’𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆: 
Russia is re-militarizing the Arctic.
China calls itself a 𝘯𝘦𝘢𝘳-𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳. 
Arctic sea lanes are opening.
Rare earth minerals matter more than oil did in 1951.
Space, hypersonics, and undersea cables now define security.
⠀
𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝟭𝟵𝟱𝟭 𝗺𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹: 
The U.S. is responsible for defense — but doesn't control sovereign decisions.
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𝗧𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀: 
Political shifts in Denmark or Greenland can constrain U.S. action.
Foreign investment decisions can invite adversaries closer.
Permits, courts, and domestic politics can slow urgent military needs.
Defense without ownership creates friction — and friction kills response time.
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Now add what we know from D.C. today.
This isn’t theory.
This is how the Pentagon, intelligence community, and defense planners think.
⠀
𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆’𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴: 
Chinese infrastructure probes.
Russian Arctic bases.
Mineral dependency vulnerabilities.
NATO allies struggling to keep pace.
Climate-driven access changing the map faster than treaties can keep up.
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So why does ownership even enter the conversation?
Not because America wants land.
Because America wants certainty.
⠀
𝗢𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝗻𝘀: 
Permanent denial of adversary influence.
Unrestricted defense posture.
Guaranteed control over critical resources.
Long-term strategic clarity instead of renewable agreements.
⠀
This isn’t about empire.
It’s about removing ambiguity in a world that punishes hesitation.
The same logic that justified the 1951 agreement now exposes its limits.
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The agreement assumed stability.
Today’s world is about acceleration.
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𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴: 
Geography doesn’t negotiate.
Security doesn’t wait for committee votes.
Great powers plan decades ahead.
⠀
Ignoring Greenland doesn’t make America virtuous.
It makes America reactive.
History tells us how that ends.
⠀
The Arctic is the next frontier of power.
The question isn’t whether Greenland matters.
The question is whether the U.S. wants to lead — or scramble later.