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The Art of the Deal: Greenland Edition
Greenland is a massive chunk of land currently owned by Denmark, about one-fifth the size of the United States. The autonomously governing population is just 56,000 — so few people live there because most of what isn’t ice is bedrock. Even hearty Icelanders abandoned their settlements there centuries ago because it was impossible to sustain a self-reliant colony. Today, Denmark pays 60 percent of Greenland’s budget.The idea of the U.S. purchasing Greenland has captured the former real-estate developer’s imagination, according to people familiar with the discussions, who said Mr. Trump has, with varying degrees of seriousness, repeatedly expressed interest in buying the ice-covered autonomous Danish territory between the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans.
In meetings, at dinners and in passing conversations, Mr. Trump has asked advisers whether the U.S. can acquire Greenland, listened with interest when they discuss its abundant resources and geopolitical importance and, according to two of the people, has asked his White House counsel to look into the idea.
Some of his advisers have supported the concept, saying it was a good economic play, two of the people said, while others dismissed it as a fleeting fascination that will never come to fruition. It is also unclear how the U.S. would go about acquiring Greenland even if the effort were serious.
America already has a toehold on Greenland via Thule Air Base on a northwest corner of the island. But why would we want any more of the territory? The same reason we built that bleak Cold War outpost: national security.
China has sought more property in the Arctic and the Pentagon had to block three Chinese-funded airports on Greenland just last year. It would also provide a nice legacy for Trump since President Truman was unable to make the same deal.
And, let’s face it, Trump is a real estate guy. If he can get 836,000 square miles for a few billion, it’s worth it. The island looks like a wasteland now, but we can all see him rebranding the southwestern coast “Greenland’s Riviera” and building a golf course and casino.
What do you think: is buying Greenland a crazy idea or one worth considering?
Published in General
It would be roughly equivalent to Alaska. Most of it would remain untamed tundra. But some hardy folks could make it profitable.
The more demand for natural resources like fossil fuels, the more incentive to improve our harvesting techniques and the higher costs become worthwhile. If Greenland’s resources are not cost-efficient today, they might become so in future decades.
Denmark knows its value. If they are willing to negotiate, they could demand more than its worth. They don’t need to sell it. Trump could use threats to change that, but I hope he wouldn’t. He could add non-monetary benefits to the deal, like offering Danes special access or furthering military protection of Denmark.
There’s a risk that Denmark would open a bidding war between the US and China. Look how cozy Europeans got with Russia. You think distant China worries them more? If Congress refused to ratify President Trump’s deal — even if he outmaneuvered China — or if our courts inappropriately intervened (as they often do now), then we would still have opened the door for China to make their own proposal.
Then there is the problem of debts. Does the national debt no longer matter? Is it so immense that burning another $500 billion makes little difference?
Overall, I like the idea. But there is more to consider than potential use.
Could this be greater than Space Force?
I think one just got ownerless.
I think he had a less literal meaning in mind. :P
They laughed when Jefferson bought Louisiana.
They laughed at Uncle Billy when he bought Alaska. They Called it his folly. But look how much gold and oil we’ve gotten out of Alaska
Yes, let’s buy Greenland. Let’s buy everything.
I would be interested in buying Greenland if the price were right.
We offered $100 million for Greenland in 1946 when Denmark and Europe were poor and starving. $100 million in 1946 would be $1.4 billion today.
The population of Denmark is 5.8 million. What would I be willing to pay for Greenland? Well, $5.8 billion to $14 billion off of the top of my head.
By way of example, the cost of the 5 mile bridge/tunnel between Denmark and Sweden was 2.6 billion Euro in 1999. We would roughly be offering about one and a half to two times the value of that bridge/tunnel.
The 56,000 Greenland residents would become U.S. Citizens.
Canada?
in the seminal book, “Merger of the Century,” author Diane Francis, seriously proposed the merger of the United States and Canada. The figures spoken of there would be payments of a ballpark of several trillion dollars split among Canada’s population.
An alternative might occur if Quebec were to split from the rest of Canada, and the western provinces applied to join the U.S., as Texas did.
Canadians would be concerned about our 1st and 2nd amendments, and we would be concerned about their healthcare system. But it could work, if Canadians wanted to join us.
I would submit that the $2 trillion cost of integrating East Germany and West Germany together was an expensive, yet long-term cost-effective decision.
D.C.?
The District of Columbia has some 633,000 people. I would prefer to fold D.C. back into the State of Maryland, and let them vote in Maryland’s elections. In 1984 Reagan carried 49 states, including Maryland. If memory serves, Reagan even carried New York City, though not the island of Manhattan. (Reagan famously declined to make a campaign stop in Minneapolis which could have swung Minnesota, reasoning that he didn’t want to wholly embarrass Mondale. The irony is that if D.C. had been part of the vote in Maryland, Reagan would have been close to caring this Greater Maryland!)
China?
I sure as heck don’t want China to buy Greenland. However, if they were seeking to do so, how do you think that the 23.6 million citizens of Taiwan would want to join the U.S. as a state? The new State of Taiwan would have a population akin to Florida or New York State, but would be less than California or Texas.
And think of all that fresh water locked up in those glaciers. The Wacko-birds are always saying we’re going to run out of fresh water. Well, we’ll have our strategic ice reserve.
If memory serves, the Great Lakes is one of the largest bodies of fresh water in the world. We would also have one of the largest “solid” bodies of water (a.k.a. “ice”) in the world.
The volume of the Greenland Ice Sheet is about 125 times larger than the volume of the Great Lakes. Definitely a Strategic Ice Reserve.
That reminds me of when people discuss merging West Virginia back with Virginia from which it was unlawfully taken and made a state from. Why on Earth would Virginia want them back?
Canada has no value to us. They can keep to themselves. They make fine neighbors who talk funny. That’s good enough. They had their chance a couple hundred years ago.
Wholly Cow!
You might be convinced to the contrary if you read “Merger of the Century” by Diane Francis.
Auðumbla?
No. I don’t believe in having everything centralized.
One has to wonder if anyone has bothered to ask the Greenlanders if they are for sale.
Or the Danes.
“When he wasn’t having his house made into a national landmark, Vice President (Nelson) Rockefeller busied himself with other small projects. When Rocky read a newspaper article mentioning the difficulty the Danes were having with Greenland, Rockefeller sent a memo to one of his aides asking, ‘Why don’t we buy it?’ It wasn’t clear whether by we Rockefeller meant himself or the U.S. government.”
“Rockefeller admitted one time to an aide that he had once financed a movie, mainly agreeing to fund the project just so he could get the pleading director out of his office and finish his lunch. The director was Orson Welles, and the movie was Citizen Kane, Rockefeller added that he had never had any interest in seeing the film.”
“After being shoved off the plank (in 1976), Rocky tried to be a good Republican… While campaigning with Dole in New York, Rockefeller faced heckling students as he began to speak. As he left the stage, the vice president gave the students an obscene gesture that didn’t mean ‘we’re number one.’ Although many people were shocked by the vice president’s vulgarity, others though that for the first time in his life Rockefeller had acted like a regular Joe. Nelson was so thrilled with this view that for a time he sent out autographed photos of himself in his defiant posture, stopping only when it was pointed out to him that this wasn’t the best way for a vice president to act.”
“(Rockefeller) had the vice president’s official seal redesigned (which he paid for personally), and he donated furniture and paintings for the home on the grounds of the Naval Observatory that had been assigned to the vice president (although he refused to move into the vice president’s mansion because his Washington mansion was much nicer).”
“‘Take an average American family with an income of $100,000…’ Rockefeller said in his most famous illustration of just how out of touch he was.”
“…the father of six children died of a heart attack in the company of a 25-year-old blond assistant, whom he had hired to help him write a book on his art holdings. … Rockefeller’s assistant had been wearing a black evening gown at the time of his death.”
— quotes for the book Bland Ambition
“The onset of the First World War … left the (Danish West Indian Islands) isolated. During the submarine warfare phases of the war the United States, fearing that the islands might be seized by Germany as a submarine base, again approached Denmark about buying them. (in 1867 a treaty to sell St. Thomas and St. John to the US was agreed but never effected.) After a few months of negotiations, a selling price of $25 million in United States gold coin was agreed, equivalent to $575.61 million in 2018 dollars. At the same time the economics of continued possession weighed heavily on the minds of Danish decision makers, and a consensus in favor of selling emerged in the Danish parliament. The Treaty of the Danish West Indies was signed in August 1916… the territory was renamed the ‘Virgin Islands of the United States.'”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Virgin_Islands
…
The United States could buy just the uninhabited parts from Denmark just to keep it away from Russia and China. Greenland should have some resources. However, the anti-American environmentalists in Europe would scream forever about something like this.
Turn Greenland into the United States. Then let all the troublesome immigrants who claim that they only want freedom settle there…
So, you’re saying that if the Germans attack the Danes, they might sell Greenland?
Why ruin a perfectly good fantasy?
I don’t think there’s a chance in hades of Denmark agreeing to this happening unless the Greenlanders aggressively insisted, and I’ve never heard any indication that they would wish to do so-if anything, they seem quite nationalistic (concerning the native culture, not Denmark).
Details, schmetails. Stop standing in the way of progress!
I believe this is called Erumpent Game Theory.
Or a Saturday back in 1985, playing Risk with my buddies.
Why don’t we buy Greenland, rename it “Medicaid Island”, and everyone who wants free healthcare is perfectly free to go there and get healthy?
Or at least, get out of my way while I’m driving to work?
I like the way you think.
I’d love to see the USA expanded in my lifetime.
However, we would then instantly have a Democratic stronghold. The population there is used to living on the government. They would soon demand statehood, and we would have to cave, including PR in that deal, and booom! 4 more Democrat Senators until the end of time, and 2 more Reps in the House, Democrat until the end of time.
Party Poopers:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/greenland-not-for-sale-trump-interest-in-purchasing
Suggest you buy El Salvador and Honduras instead.
They should. It’s all part of our Canadian containment policy.
We’ve purchased from Denmark before. Danish West Indies are now the US Virgin Islands.
Our drinks shall never be tepid again!
Belize, if the internet’s claims about cheap real estate are to be believed.