Trump has announced, in a single social media post, that “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration is about to begin in Greenland. He gave no names, no locations and no start date.
“Massive Oil, Gas, and Mineral Exploration is getting ready to begin in our new and beautiful Greenland!” he wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday, October 14, according to Deutsche Welle. He also claimed that experts believed the island held some of the world’s largest deposits of easily accessible oil. He offered no evidence.
What the island actually holds
Greenland is believed to hold substantial untapped oil, but whether any of it can be produced at a profit is unclear. Extraction costs are high, the Arctic conditions are punishing and environmental restrictions apply. No commercial oil production has ever been established there. The mineral picture is firmer: the island has significant deposits, including rare earth elements used in electronics, renewable energy technologies and military equipment.
In August, reports that a U.S. oil company was preparing operations in a remote part of eastern Greenland unsettled residents and local authorities. Trump did not say whether his post had anything to do with that.
The security backdrop
The announcement came after a September agreement between the United States, Denmark and Greenland, signed to calm tensions after Trump’s repeated threats to take the island, force included. Under the 10-page deal, Washington will build two more military bases, at Narsarsuaq in the south and Mestersvig in the east. It already runs Pituffik Space Base in the north. The text provides for cooperation on missile defense and reaffirms Danish sovereignty and the Greenlandic people’s right to self-determination. Greenland is a self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark, and Trump’s earlier demands had strained ties between Washington and Copenhagen, both NATO allies.
In the same post Trump called Greenland’s position “second to none” for American and European security. “Any future attack on the United States will have to come across Greenland,” he claimed. The island sits along one of the shortest routes between Russia and North America, which makes it valuable for missile detection, and for his proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system. Melting Arctic ice has also raised interest in new shipping lanes.
It is a long way from the Cold War, when thousands of American troops were stationed at several sites under a 1951 treaty. Washington closed all of them except Pituffik of its own accord.
