Here's an interesting way to spend a trillion dollars: buy the world's largest island, wait decades for any economic return, and potentially tick off your NATO allies in the process. That's essentially what President Donald Trump is proposing with his plan to acquire Greenland, according to industry and geopolitical analysts who've crunched the numbers.
The pitch sounds impressive at first. It would be the largest geographic addition in U.S. history, dwarfing even the Louisiana Purchase. Greenland sits in a strategically valuable position and holds substantial reserves of critical minerals and crude oil. What's not to like?
Quite a bit, actually. The White House's own estimates peg the purchase price near $700 billion, with hundreds of billions more needed for infrastructure development. That's close to $1 trillion over the next 20 years for minimal economic return, experts warn.
The fundamental problem is that the U.S. doesn't really need to buy Greenland to access what Greenland offers. America already has significant access to Greenlandic territory for both security and economic interests. And those much-hyped natural resources? They're cheaper to extract elsewhere, including within U.S. borders, according to Otto Svendsen, an Arctic specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who spoke with Fortune.
None of this has deterred Trump, who frames the acquisition as a national security imperative. He's expressed determination to annex Greenland through purchase or, more controversially, military action—an approach that could violate international laws and strain NATO relationships.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is taking a more diplomatic path, focusing on a negotiated purchase. There's just one problem: both Denmark and Greenland have repeatedly rejected the idea. The Trump administration isn't waiting around, though, already planning a significant upgrade to the Pituffik Space Base, America's only military installation on the island.
The bottom line? When you already have access to what you're trying to buy, and the seller isn't interested anyway, maybe it's time to reconsider whether this trillion-dollar shopping spree makes sense.
