In late 2018, President Trump asked his national security adviser, John Bolton , to weigh in on an idea floated by a prominent businessman: Should the U.S. buy Greenland?
Bolton said he would look into it. “We’ve got important strategic interests there,” he recalled saying. Once news of the effort leaked, it was derailed and Trump moved on to other priorities.
Eight years later, however, Trump’s pursuit of Greenland has become a focus of his second presidential term. In recent days, he has ramped up pressure on European leaders in an attempt to wrest the world’s largest island into U.S. control.
By threatening tariffs and leaving the specter of military action on the table in recent days, he has stunned even some aides who now believe it could become more difficult for Europeans to accept any sort of negotiation given the U.S. president’s increasing demands.
Danish soldiers land at Nuuk airport, January 19, 2026. Mads Claus Rasmussen/ Ritzau Scanpix/via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. DENMARK OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN DENMARK.
Senior administration officials have tried to reassure European allies that there are currently no military plans to take over Greenland, and European leaders are working the phone with Trump and his inner-circle in a bid to de-escalate. One top diplomat said that unlike in Trump’s first term, Europeans are taking his threats more seriously now.
After he won the 2024 election, the president immediately set his eyes again on acquiring the Danish island, according to people involved in the discussions. And Trump has suggested if Denmark doesn’t give up control of Greenland, he might take it by force.
As a real-estate developer, Trump has long been enticed by the idea of acquiring Greenland, an area more than three times the size of Texas, in what would be the largest land acquisition since the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in 1867. But he brought to his second term a new willingness to upend diplomatic norms to pursue a goal he believes would cement his legacy.
He was especially emboldened by the successful U.S. military mission capturing Venezuela’s autocratic leader, Nicolás Maduro, according to people familiar with the matter. Despite criticism that the move violated international law, Trump viewed the ouster as a foreign-policy victory.
Immediately after Trump took office, he and his advisers began discussing how much money to offer Greenlanders, as well as planned agreements regarding mineral rights—which could far exceed the benefits residents currently receive from Denmark, according to people familiar with the matter. Those discussions have accelerated in recent weeks.
Trump claims Greenland is vital to U.S. national security and deterring China and Russia in the region. He has argued that NATO would be stronger if Greenland is under U.S. control, and has linked the Arctic island to his planned Golden Dome missile-defense system. Greenland also has untapped reserves of rare-earth minerals.
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view shows western Greenland, September 16, 2025. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/File Photo
But the president also sees acquiring Greenland as part of his quest to expand American territory. Trump admires James Polk, who as president during the mid-1800s oversaw the largest expansion of U.S. territory in history, and specifically requested his portrait for the Oval Office.
Critically, bringing Greenland into America’s fold aligns with the president’s national-security goal of dominating the Western Hemisphere, advisers say. Those goals are expected to be part of his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, a senior official said.
In an escalation over the weekend, Trump announced on social media that he would impose 10% tariffs on imports from several European countries in an effort to pressure Denmark to sell Greenland to the U.S. The tariffs will increase to 25% on June 1 and remain in place until a deal is reached for what he called the “complete and total purchase” of Greenland, Trump said.
FILE PHOTO: A 3D-printed miniature model of U.S. President Donald Trump, the EU flag and the word “Tariffs” appear in this illustration taken January 17, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Trump’s announcement comes after European nations sent military and diplomatic assets to Greenland to deter the U.S. from acquiring the territory.
“Many of this President’s predecessors recognized the strategic logic of acquiring Greenland, but only President Trump has had the courage to pursue this seriously,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. “The entire administration is prepared to execute any plan to acquire Greenland that the President chooses.”
The businessman who gave Trump the idea to buy Greenland was billionaire Ronald Lauder, who is an investor in the Arctic territory, according to Bolton. Lauder explained in an opinion column in the New York Post last year that Trump’s desire for Greenland to become U.S. territory is no laughing matter.
“To know Greenland is to understand that it is not just another strategic asset: It is America’s next frontier,” Lauder wrote.
During Trump’s first term, plans were quietly made for Bolton to meet with the prime minister of Denmark in 2019, and even for Trump to potentially meet with the Danes and discuss Greenland on the way back from a scheduled trip to Poland in September 2019.
A team of national-security officials researched Trump’s proposal. Bolton determined that they could try to update the 1951 Defense of Greenland Agreement, which grants the U.S. extensive rights to establish and operate military facilities in the vast arctic region.
When The Wall Street Journal broke the story in August 2019, “It was all downhill from there,” Bolton recalled. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called Trump’s idea of buying Greenland “absurd.” Trump called the prime minister’s statement “nasty” and “inappropriate.” Trump told Bolton to scrap his visit to Copenhagen.
A man walks a dog at Nuuk’s old harbour, Greenland, January 18, 2026. REUTERS/Marko Djurica
Now back in office, Trump is more determined to demonstrate his power and has fewer people around him who are urging a different course.
The president has argued that Copenhagen should “make a deal” to transfer the Arctic territory. But he has repeatedly declined to rule out military action, including when asked about it in an interview with NBC on Monday .
Trump also recently explained in an interview with the New York Times that ownership is, for him, “psychologically needed for success.”
“Ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document, that you can have a base,” Trump said.
On Monday the president introduced a new justification for his aggression toward Greenland when he told Norway, one of the countries Trump threatened to hit with tariffs, that he no longer needed to think “purely of peace” after not winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
Trump has repeatedly expressed confidence—and awe—in the power of the U.S. military. He has also begun to think more about his legacy, now having entered the second year of his final term, and has told advisers he wants to move swiftly to get things done.
Despite Trump’s threats there has been no decision made on exactly what to do, according to U.S. officials. That stands in contrast to Venezuela, where a steady military presence was in place to carry out the eventual mission.
Some of Trump’s advisers privately worry that the tariffs and other saber rattling have made a deal to buy the island difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Trump’s push is uniting European resistance to Trump, and Trump has become more acrimonious in his demands in recent days.
Over the weekend, thousands of people gathered in the Danish capital in front of the U.S. Embassy to demonstrate against Trump’s Greenland ambitions. Some donned red hats that parodied the famous MAGA slogan with the phrase “Make America Go Away.”
They said they were baffled and angry with Trump’s actions.
“If it is just all rhetoric in the U.S., it is not felt that way here,” said Frej Lund Taunajik Adamsen, a demonstrator who has family in Greenland. “People are very afraid.”
Write to Meridith McGraw at Meridith.McGraw@WSJ.com , Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com and Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com
