"I won't use force." In January, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, United States President Donald Trump made an about-face on Greenland, after weeks of threatening to annex the island. Washington had been coveting the Danish autonomous territory, not only for its strategic geographic location but also for its resource-rich subsoil, packed with rare earths. These metals are critical for several industries, ranging from the automotive to the aerospace sector. On this last point, the US, eager to reduce its dependence on rare earths from China, has not given up. What could not be seized by military force is being acquired via the country's other great power: Wall Street.
A drilling platform at the Tanbreez project, near Qaqortoq, Greenland, on September 16, 2025. JONAS KAKO/PANOS-REA
Through a few financial operations, Critical Metals, a US company founded in 2022, took total control of a major Greenlandic rare earth deposit. The deposit is the most important one outside China, thanks to its high concentration of heavy elements (terbium, dysprosium, etc.), which are especially sought after, notably for their military applications. Extracting the elements from the site at an affordable cost remains a considerable technological challenge, but the way the takeover was orchestrated stands as a textbook example: yet another illustration of the American financial markets' ability to draw in global assets.
