The cold, icy island called Greenland wasn’t supposed to be controversial—until it was. For the last 200 years, the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway kept it peaceful until the Danish government and missionary Hans Egede established a monopoly in Greenland. After the Denmark-Norway union dissolved in 1814, the territory remained solely under Danish rule. It was declared a colony until 1953, when it became part of Denmark.
The day was January 9th, 2026, when President Donald Trump stated that he was “going to do something to Greenland, whether they liked it or not.” The president also mentioned that “it may be a choice” whether to preserve NATO or seize Greenland, and he felt that he “no longer had an obligation to think solely about Peace” after not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Greenland, however, has one of the most peculiar locations in the world. Located closer to the North Pole than any other country, Greenland is in a superb location to extract resources from the Arctic, one of the most resource-rich places, holding a remarkable untapped 30% of the world’s gas and 13% of the world’s oil.
Additionally, Greenland is is directly under the shortest distance from Russia to the U.S., a path heavily defended during the Cold War, hosting up to thirteen bases and a complex Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (part of their Distant Early Warning line across the Artic in 1961) located near their main base, the Thule air base (now the Pituffik Space Base), which once housed thousands of personnel, bombers, and interceptors to protect the base and track soviet planes or missiles.
“I don’t think the United States should completely take over Greenland, but the land could be put to better use while keeping the local population involved,” Fifth Former Ethan Qiang said. “There’s potential value in Greenland’s resources, which could justify strategic interest.”
However, History Department Chair Ms. Hannah Turlish and others in the Haverford community point out that such conquests are not necessary.
“Denmark is a NATO country. Greenland is part of Denmark. To try to forcibly take over Greenland would be an invasion of a NATO country. We would be destroying NATO if we did anything to try to access the land by force. I am also confused as to why we would need to do that since we have had essentially unlimited access to any military bases we needed since 1945. This would blow up the post-World War II international order in a very dangerous way,” she said.
“While Greenland is geographically closer to Russia via the Arctic, the United States already owns Alaska, which is directly adjacent to Russia,” Fifth Former Ezra Walters said. “China is not geographically close to Greenland, though it has sought an Arctic presence through research and economic initiatives, as has Russia. The United States should similarly increase its Arctic involvement without needing to control Greenland.”
Allies of the U.S. have rallied to find a new dependable trading ally: The People’s Republic of China. Historic, revered allies since 1942 have seen these “bully” tariffs as increasing economic strain, trade instability, and strained diplomatic relations.
“When it comes to Canada and European democracies, these countries have looked to the United States as a fellow democracy to resist totalitarian attempts to take over the world,” Ms. Turlish said. “Now they are looking at us as a totalitarian state trying to take over the planet. Canada and Europe are trying to figure out how to move forward without us as an ally. They are beginning to see us in the same camp as Russia and China, which is terrifying.”
Tariffs now stand at a threatened additional ten percent on select European countries, increasing to twenty-five percent until he’s allowed to purchase Greenland. This, paired with additional tariffs for not winning the Nobel Peace Prize have not yet been implemented, but has instead played a factor in the European Union’s compromise with the U.S. to set U.S. tariffs on Europe at fifteen percent, while EU nations eliminated most tariffs on the U.S., including their retaliatory tariffs, with this new deal. This deal, created at the World Economic Forum in Davos, has still not cleared the European Parliament yet, as they need to discuss whether they would be giving in to President Trump’s “bully” diplomacy.
“We have turned over a new page in the world order,” history teacher Mr. Bhelly Bagbonon said. “Many of the allies that we have entrusted for decades feel bitter, feel betrayed, and are looking for new opportunities. Mike Carney, the newly elected prime minister of Canada, announced that he will use strategic approaches to build new alliances around climate change, global security, and economic prosperity. If that means China or American geopolitical opponents are involved, that is a loss for American civilians to lose the fabric of those alliances and trade negotiations. I do think that the consequences, if they are not felt immediately, will come in the short and intermediate term.”
“Trump’s actions regarding Greenland may have pushed some allies closer to China,” Qiang said. “While Russia, China, and other countries are all active in the Arctic, the United States could pursue its interests there, but it should be careful not to escalate tensions into conflict. Using Greenland to encourage allies to increase their security contributions has some merit, but the way it is being pursued is aggressive and potentially destabilizing.”
A great deal has ensued after such perceived threats from President Trump, including Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen threatening that this could halt NATO cooperation, and NATO symbolically deploying forty personnel to Greenland.
“To do anything other than maintain the status quo is to destroy NATO,” Ms. Turlish said. “Destroying NATO is Vladimir Putin’s greatest fantasy. The most dangerous thing to do is anything that jeopardizes NATO’s stability.”
Despite some annual Arctic preparation expeditions from NATO, President Trump claims that such security is not enough. In 2024, NATO allies agreed that a benchmark of two percent of every country’s GDP should go directly to their defense spending to counteract Russia’s actions in Crimea and Ukraine. However, many countries, including Denmark, Germany, Italy, and Canada, did not rise up to this two-percent mark until recently, when it jumped to 2.4 percent to give more aid to Ukraine. A significant factor in this was President Trump’s criticism of low European defence spending. However, even then, President Trump did not think it was enough. While the country with the largest GDP in the world was consistently contributing four percent, which equates to twenty-five percent of NATO’s security spending, NATO countries were barely scraping two percent—an idea known as free riding (off of the U.S.). Many even see this as the reason Europeans get benefits such as cheap education, free healthcare, and employee benefits. Following this, at the June 2025 NATO Summit in The Hague, NATO leaders formally pledged to raise defence and security‑related spending to five percent of their GDP by 2035.
“Even if Europe has underinvested in defense spending, annexing or pressuring Greenland does not improve that situation,” Walters said. “While increasing security cooperation in Greenland may be reasonable, annexation is not justified. I do not think this adds anything meaningful to the country. It appears to function more as an ego boost for the president than as a policy with tangible benefits. Also, public perceptions of Greenland’s size are distorted by map projections. Greenland is often believed to be far larger than it actually is due to how world maps stretch regions farther from the equator, so many think it is more important than it is.”
“This situation sends a clear message to other global powers, such as China with Taiwan and Russia with Ukraine, that the United States may act unilaterally, disregarding allies,” Ms. Turlish said. “Regarding trade relations, keeping partnerships with the Allies and close trade relations with Europe is in the best interest of the United States. Trade deficits, in my view, are not inherently problematic. The U.S. is a purchasing country that produces intellectual goods while importing manufactured goods. [These actions] threaten the stability of the alliance and risk repeating the conditions that led to global conflict in World War II.”
Recently, Russia and China have increased activity in the Arctic, with Russia rebuilding and expanding military and logistical infrastructure, including dozens of Arctic bases and naval exercises, to secure the region and assert control over the Northern Sea Route, which cuts the distance from Northeast Asia to Northern Europe by forty percent. This route is much more logical than the previous and dated Suez Canal made in 1869, and China is positioning itself as a “near‑Arctic state,” investing in shipping, energy projects, and joint exercises with Moscow, including the “Polar Silk Road” as a part of their Belt and Road initiative.
“Both the Russians, as well as the Chinese government, have made inroads into the Arctic Circle,” Mr. Bagbonon said. “The Russians have launched robotic drones onto the ocean floor of the Arctic to plant flags on the ocean floor in their imperialistic conquest of controlling the Arctic. I do think that building awareness around how Greenland can be used as a strategic home base to push up against our geopolitical opponents in Russia and in China is a good thing. But creating a shift towards that requires that all allied powers have an equal opportunity to speak and that their interests are heard equally, not just the voice of the United States.”
As an attempt to justify this threatened imperialism, President Trump mentioned the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, stating that it symbolized that America is first and most important.
“The Monroe Doctrine was signed and ratified by our Congress to ensure that the United States practiced isolationism and avoided becoming overly involved in European affairs and global conflicts,” Mr. Bagbonon said. “However, it is contradictory to say that we are using the Monroe Doctrine to practice isolationism while still heavily involving ourselves in international affairs and pushing against our allies in Europe to take territory that is not within our control or jurisdiction.”
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