President Trump isn't just talking about "getting" Greenland—his administration is exploring the financial impact of doing so, according to a report in the Washington Post. The paper spoke with three people close to the matter who say the White House is assembling an estimate of what it would cost the US were Greenland to become a territory, including both the cost of extending government services to the country's 58,000 residents and the revenue that could be gained from capitalizing on the country's natural resources. One official said the cost-benefit analysis being done by a division within the Office of Management and Budget assumes "the Greenlanders vote and support this."
The Post's sources say one option being floated is trying to woo Greenland by sweetening the pot: Denmark provides Greenland with a grant of about $600 million annually. "We'll pay you more than Denmark does" is how one official characterizes a possible approach. In his visit to Greenland last Friday, Vice President JD Vance leaned into that narrative: "Our message to Denmark is very simple. You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland. You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people," he said.
In January, the New York Times wondered what the US should theoretically offer for Greenland were it for sale, and it got this estimate from former New York Fed economist David Barker: between $12.5 billion and $77 billion. He landed there based on what the US spent to acquire Alaska and the US Virgin Islands, adjusted for GDP. A paper that same month from the American Action Forum floated two sums: a price near $200 billion if the value was based on the market price of Greenland's mineral reserves, or nearly $2.8 trillion, a number calculated "using Iceland as a proxy for the value of its North Atlantic location." (More Greenland stories.)
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