President Donald Trump’s pursuit of Greenland was at the center of his address to the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. The President, speaking in Davos, Switzerland, unleashed a sweeping history lesson about Greenland’s role in American security—lamenting that the United States was “stupid” to return the Arctic island to Denmark after World War II and insisting the time has come to reclaim the territory. He did clarify that acquiring the “big beautiful piece of ice” would not include military force.
Framing Greenland as both a misunderstood asset and an American birthright, he told the Davos audience that during World War II, the United States “was compelled” to send forces to Greenland after Denmark fell to Nazi Germany “after just six hours of fighting,” saying U.S. troops “saved Greenland and successfully prevented our enemies from gaining a foothold in our hemisphere.” After the war, he continued, recounting history in his own terms, Washington “gave Greenland back to Denmark,” a decision he castigated in blunt terms. “How stupid were we to do that?” he said. “But we did it, we gave it back. But how ungrateful are they now?”
Trump has repeatedly described Greenland as a core national security interest of the United States—a strategic bulwark between the U.S., Russia, and China that Washington, he claims, can uniquely defend. During his speech, he dismissed Greenland’s much-talked-about mineral wealth—including rare earths—as a secondary consideration behind strategic defenses, arguing that the island’s geographic position alone makes it indispensable to U.S. interests.
