LONDON, Oct 7 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s offer to buy Greenland didn’t go down well with either the inhabitants of the world’s largest island or with Denmark, which administers it as an autonomous territory.
The Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen described the idea as “absurd”, triggering a diplomatic fall-out as Trump decided to cancel a planned visit to Denmark.
The idea may be many things but, from a U.S. perspective, it is not “absurd”. There are two completely rational drivers for eyeing up Greenland – its strategic location for North Atlantic shipping and its untapped mineral reserves.
“They’ve got a lot of valuable minerals”, was White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow’s explanation of Trump’s latest real estate ambitions. As it stands, the United States will have to content itself with a more mundane memorandum of understanding, signed in June, to jointly fund and operate an aerial survey of Greenland’s Gardar province.
Gardar “has great potential for new discoveries of a range of mineral commodities, including rare earth elements,” according to the U.S. Department of State.
For the rest of this column: https://www.reuters.com/article/critical-minerals-ahome/column-united-states-races-to-build-critical-minerals-alliances-andy-home-idUSL5N26S3L6